Free Red Night ((Book 1) Timewalker Chronicles) by Michele Callahan Page B

hot.
    Five minutes was hell when you wanted forever. But she’d take it. The world could wait.
    Sighing, she closed her eyes and snuggled close enough to rub her forehead against his cheek like a purring cat. Contentment made her limbs weak and her eyelids heavy. What she wouldn’t give to simply melt into him. Alexa never had been able to lie worth a damn. Especially to herself. She could pretend to be noble, pretend that she would try to save the world out of a sense of duty, honor, or moral fortitude. But in that moment, she admitted the truth to herself. Perhaps she’d wanted to save the world once. Now she was doing it for him. If that was a blight against her soul, so be it.
    The song ended, but it took a moment for awareness to fight its way through the sensual haze of Luke’s embrace. He loosened his hold and she slipped out of his arms.
    Luke’s thumb feathered over her cheek and he brushed a quick kiss over her lips. “In a few hours, I’ll make sure you look at me like that for the rest of the night.”
    Quickly she looked away and hoped he wouldn’t notice the heat she felt coloring her cheeks or the shiver that ran up her spine. Just because he noticed her reaction to him didn’t mean he had to point it out. “What look?”
    That damn smile again.
    “Fine.” Nope. Couldn’t lie worth a damn. She leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him again because she had to. A quick, hard kiss that temporarily satisfied her new addiction to his taste. “Now, stop baby-sitting me and let me do my job.”
    With a sly wink and a last lingering touch on her shoulder he walked away.
    What kind of response was that? He had every intention of dogging her footsteps for the rest of the night. Obviously, he had a hell of a lot more faith in all the Colonel’s boys than she did. She needed air. And she needed a place where she could disappear again without drawing attention.
    A quick search of the room confirmed what she already knew. It was either into the foyer to hide behind one of the archways, or back into the ladies room.
    Darting in and out of view, a face caught her eye and the air froze in her chest. Thank God. She’d started to worry that the ringmaster wouldn’t show up to run his own circus. But there he was. She’d been waiting two hours for the bastard to show himself again. Now she just had to keep him in her sights. No time to hide. If someone saw her disappear, they’d just have to write it off to too much champagne.
    Two days of constant practice made bending the light second nature to her now. She disappeared instantly and darted across the room, dodging those she could, bumping into those she couldn’t. The free flow of alcohol in the room was all the cover she was going to get. Judging by the dazed looks on the faces of the few she bumped into, it would be enough.
    The service elevator doors were sliding closed when she caught up to him. She shoved her arm between the doors and gritted her teeth as the mechanical beasts bit into her arm, then slid back open. A huge, terrifying man with a shaved head, square jaw and a pockmarked face stood next to the panel. He was dressed all in black. His thick meaty hands looked like they could bend steel, or snap her in two. Pushing the button again he stared hard at his companion.
    Great. She hadn’t counted on the big guy. He probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds. Hell. There’d be no second chances with him. But there was no going back.
    Alexa flowed into the corner, silent as the fog. She tried not to move, or breathe, as the doors closed and the big machine started to fall. The weight of her gun on her ankle was strangely comforting. Assuming she had time to reach for it.
    As soon as the elevator was moving, the Colonel reached down to adjust something on his belt and then pulled an earpiece out of his left ear. “You got him?”
    “Yes, sir.” The big man’s deep voice resonated in the confined space and made her feel like the bones of her skull