Part 11 (1/2)

”They could be into Los Angeles, for all I know,” she said. ”We're not going to catch them this way. We have to get ahead of them, and for that, we don't just need location, we need direction and speed. Do you think you could get all that? From a link with her?”

He looked thoughtful. ”Maybe. I could try, anyway, but like I said, I need a place without distractions.”

”Would the car do?”

”Not really. Road noise, vibration-” He shrugged. ”What about a room? If I can't do it in an hour, we can get in the car and keep trying.”

”A room,” she said.

”It's a motel. They do rent rooms here. Probably not the Hilton, but...”

”We don't have time.” But they did, she realized. The police were still a little bit wary of her story, and it was the middle of the night, and she wasn't likely to be driving out of their immediate supervision any time in the next sixty minutes.

Stefan frowned. ”You said yourself that we need to get ahead of them, and we need information. So we have time for it. Or I do, anyway. If you want to take off and send someone to get me...”

”No,” she said. ”No, I'll stay.”

Something in his shoulders loosened, and she realized that he'd been tense.

”Good,” he said. ”I think...I think you can help.”

Chapter 9.

S tefan just wanted to sleep. His eyes felt grainy, his muscles tight and aching with the tension and exhaustion of the day. But he couldn't sleep, not if Katie was staying awake. But at least he'd bargained for a bed to lie down on, and if sleep came, well...it came.

Not that you don't want other things.

Oh, he did. It had been unwise, kissing her like that, but he'd wanted it, and he could resist anything except, well, temptation. And she'd been wonderfully receptive in ways that he'd never felt before, despite a pretty broad range of experience.

Something between them had resonated like a struck bell. He felt it tolling now, as he watched Katie book the room and take the clumsy orange triangular key holder. They were in number four.

”Not a word,” she warned him, and pushed past him to lead the way down the hall. He closed his mouth and followed, exchanging a look with the woman at the counter. She winked at him. He winked back purely out of habit.

The hallway, like the rest of the truck stop, was clean and worn. The door opened on a Spartan room, with a plain white queen-size bed, a dark green blanket folded neatly at the foot. Two fluffed pillows. A small desk, a TV in the corner, a phone, a couple of lamps. No decor to speak of.

Katie excused herself to the bathroom, which Stefan thought looked like a continuation of the white theme. White tile, white shower curtain, white towels.

Well, he'd wanted a lack of distractions. This certainly qualified.

He sat down on the bed and took off his shoes, then settled back on the unbelievably soft feather pillow. Bliss. His exhausted body felt as if it were floating.

Stefan opened his eyes as he felt the blanket settling over him. Katie was bent over him, tucking him in, and they were close. Very close.

”You sure you want to do this?” she asked. ”You're tired, and so am I. Maybe you should just rest.”

”No. I want to do this, Katie. I need to do this.”

He reached up to move a lock of hair back from her face. She smiled, but it looked sad.

”We can't, can we?” he asked. ”Not now.”

She hesitated, clearly torn, and then shook her head. ”I don't think so, Stefan.”

He nodded and closed his eyes.

The featherlight pressure of her lips on his surprised and stirred him, and he lifted into the kiss and reached out to stroke his fingers up her arms, bury them in the warm silky ma.s.s of her hair. The kiss deepened, sweetened. She opened her mouth and slowly, dreamily caressed his lips with her tongue. He felt her weight sink down on the bed next to him, as if her legs didn't want to support her, and that was good; it kept her from bolting away and ending this still, quiet, sunlit moment.

When she pulled back, he cleared his throat, trying to look as if that kind of kiss happened to him every day, trying not to betray exactly how compelling he'd found it. Only the fact that she'd spread a blanket over him was keeping him from instant confession on that score.

Katie brushed her fingertips across his forehead. Her eyes-gorgeous dark eyes, with hints of green s.h.i.+mmering in the depths-were wide and almost glowing, and the color in her face, the wet firmness of her lips...He knew when a woman was deeply aroused, and he was looking at one now.

So it was even more frustrating when she said, ”Sixty minutes, remember? We're looking for location and direction, and any other information you can pick up.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and closed his eyes. That was easier, not looking at her, though it only increased the frequency of the pictures flas.h.i.+ng through his mind, most of which were speculation about how she would look when-to be honest, if-he managed to get her out of that suit and in bed.

She didn't speak again, and she didn't move. He forced his heart rate to slow, his breathing to regulate, and at long last put to use all those meditation techniques that his mother had insisted the entire family learn during her latest yoga craze. Someday, she'd told him, you're going to need to know how to shut out distractions, Stefan.

Well, Mom was right, as always.

The room was well insulated; he heard nothing but the slow ticking of a clock, the regular whisper of Katie's breathing. The silence pooled in the room, then filled him, flowing and lapping like water.

And then, with no transition, he was lying on the floor of a van, screaming into a gag.

Katie felt it happen; his whole body changed, relaxed in ways that it didn't when awake. At first, she thought he'd simply drifted off to sleep, and despite the driving urgency that never left her now, she couldn't really begrudge him that.

But he wasn't asleep. His eyes opened, and they were empty and dark.

He was with Teal.

It took a long time-twenty minutes, by the clock on the side of the bed-but as long as he was gone, she stayed completely still and waited. He breathed, occasionally blinked, but it was just the body remembering a need, not the mind.

Finally, he jerked; his chest rose and fell in a gulping gasp, and he turned on his side, away from her. She heard distress in the uneven rhythm of his breathing, and put her hand on his back.

”Stefan?”

”Give me a minute,” he croaked, a parody of his usual velvet-soft voice. He was shaking all over, as if he'd been stranded in a freezer instead of lying in a comfortable bed, covered with a blanket. When she touched the back of her hand to his face, his skin felt ice cold. She bolted up, alarmed, and grabbed an extra blanket from the closet that she spread over him, then stripped off her jacket and the shoulder holster, kicked off her shoes, and crawled under the warm weight on the other side of the bed. She burrowed closer to his s.h.i.+vering body and pulled him in close.

His breath continued to fan warm across her neck, fast and unsteady, but he reached for her and held on like a drowning man in a flood.

”I'm here,” Katie murmured. ”Stefan, I'm right here. You're safe. Can you hear me?”

A convulsive nod of his head.

”Are they all right? The girls?”

Another nod, this one not quite as uncontrolled. Her presence, her warmth, was helping him reconnect.