Free Eye of the Storm by Renee Simons Page B

with the lightest touch he could manage. When she responded he deepened the kiss. Her lips parted beneath his, her breath moist on the tongue he let slip inside to find and join with hers.
    Her arms slipped around his neck. The movement thrust every heart-stopping feminine curve against him. His senses reeled and the blood pounded through his veins. His arms tightened around her as he lifted her off her feet.
    "Your ribs," she protested. "You'll make them worse."
    "To hell with them," he murmured against her mouth. "The rest of me feels too good to stop."
    She clung to him, her breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest, her belly and hips trembling against the passion his body could not deny. He backed into the shadowy parking lot and leaned against the hood of a van, never releasing her as he kissed her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks and the hollow pulsing at the base of her throat. As his arms pinned her to him, the fingers of her free hand tangled in his hair, held tightly as her mouth tore from his and wandered over his face, then traveled down the side of his neck to where it joined his shoulder.
    Finally, he let her slide slowly to the ground. His hands swept the long waves of hair from her face and lifted her chin so he could look into eyes deep and black and studded with reflected light from the moon above them. She pushed lightly against his chest. He let her go, watching as she struggled to calm the trembling that wracked her, to tame the needs aroused by their encounter.
    "I've got to go," she whispered raggedly and backed away.
    He saw his own fear reflected in her eyes and did nothing to stop her. He'd begun something he was in no position to finish, that he had no right to pursue until his freedom was certain.
    Zan left through the narrow alley between two parked campers only to be blinded by the sudden glare of headlights. She threw up an arm to block the light. Below the grill and headlights of a Jeep, she made out the first two digits of the license plate.
    "That's her," a voice shouted. "He's got to be close."
    She turned and crashed into a body as hard and unyielding as the trunk of a cottonwood. Stormwalker had just emerged from between the campers. Although he seemed immovable, she leaned against him and shoved with every ounce of her strength.
    Responding to her silent urgency, he fell back and pulled her into the shadows. The voices got louder and angrier. Flashlight beams crisscrossed the parking lot. Feet pounded the area in a frantic, disorganized search.
    He pinned her against the van and whispered, "Stay here."
    "Where are you going?"
    "I want to see who those guys are."
    "One of them is Billy Winter. What more do you need to know?" She took his arm. "Let's get out of here."
    He shook his head. "Stay put. I want to see what's going on out there."
    Stormwalker moved into the darkness. Zan waited for a few seconds, then followed him. She kept him in her sights but let some distance open up between them. Finally, he seemed to find the spot he wanted. He dropped to the ground and slithered beneath an old, converted bus.
      To her right she saw a pickup with plenty of clearance and did the same. She glanced briefly in his direction to make sure he hadn't moved, then found herself staring at the shoes of two men leaning against the front of the bus.
    They spoke softly; what they said got lost in the noises of the crowd. Even so, Zan was taken aback by the artificial quality of one of the voices.   It sounded computerized.
    No, she thought. Computer-generated voices were smooth and easy to understand despite their stilted quality. This voice was less coherent. She strained to make out the words, but only when the crowd stampeded past and quiet returned, was she able to hear the conversation.
    "Are they always together?" the strange voice asked.
    "I don't know. Is that important?"
    "Can we use her to get to him?"
    "She must hate him because of O'Neill."
    "Then the sexual angle won't work."
    Zan