What’s the word there? He shot off the text to Dare.
Dare’s response popped up a minute later. We set up some snipers’ roosts to get better eyes on the area. Holed up in one for the night. Got the guys organized into watch units. Otherwise things are quiet. Dare was a good choice for lookout—he was one of the best shots Ike knew.
Sorry I’m not there, Ike replied.
Do the job you need to do, Dare said. Of all people, Ike knew Dare wouldn’t question his need to protect Jess. No one knew the full extent of the shit that had rained down on Dare as a kid, but the man seemed to have devoted his life to making up for it by taking care of as many people as he could. Hell, Dare had put it right there in the Ravens’ motto: “Ride. Fight. Defend.”
Another message from Dare: Jeremy accepted responsibility for Harvey and Creed’s deaths today.
What the fuck? Why would Jeremy think he was responsible for the Ravens’ deaths? He wasn’t the one who’d shot a missile at the Hard Ink building in a predawn attack—that was all on the mercenaries masquerading as legitimate defense contractors that the team had identified at the morning’s brief. Former military guys who worked for Seneka Worldwide Security, Nick’s teammate had said when he’d showed the image of the tattoo that had set Jess and him off on their flight out of the city.
And on top of it all, Jeremy had nearly been killed when part of the warehouse’s roof collapsed. Responsible for Harvey and Creed dying? Hardly.
OK, I’ll take care of it, Ike responded. He knew the hell that guilt for someone else’s death caused. He’d dealt with it for years. Only, for Ike, it was deserved. No way was he letting Jeremy, his best friend outside the Ravens, think any of that burden lay at his feet.
On a sigh, Ike dropped his head against the back of the chair. Fuck, he was tired. And not just because of the disrupted sleep and the crisis he’d helped manage back at Hard Ink the past few weeks. Ike was tired of the weight of the guilt he bore. He was tired of living half a life. He was tired of being alone—and knowing he didn’t deserve more.
His gaze drifted over to Jessica, still balled in the center of the bed.
She definitely deserved more than he was or he could give. Which, in a twisted way, probably meant it was a good thing she’d gotten sick. Ike wouldn’t be tempted to jump her the way he had this afternoon when she’d come out of the bathroom, skin still warm and damp and pink from the shower. And if he kept his hands off, he wouldn’t give her the mistaken impression that they could be anything more than they were.
Just friends.
Chapter 6
A long, low moan had Ike’s eyes snapping open. He wasn’t the slightest bit disoriented this time. Instead, his gaze cut immediately to Jess, who was moving restlessly on the bed, though she still seemed to be asleep.
Ike woke up his phone to see that it was nearly three in the morning.
Another moan, so high-pitched and needful it was almost a whimper.
He crossed to the bed and pressed his hand to Jess’s forehead. If he’d thought she felt hot earlier, it was nothing compared to now. Jesus, she was uncomfortable to touch.
“Jess, wake up. Time for more medicine,” he said.
Bleary, unfocused eyes struggled to look up at him, and then fell closed again.
“Jess.” He shook her gently by the shoulders, but all that got him was another agonized groan. “Fuck,” he bit out. He had to get this fever down. He rarely got sick, so he didn’t have a thermometer there to see just how high her temperature was. And, damn it all to hell, the situation they were in would make taking her to a clinic or emergency room risky anyway. A few weeks before, someone had nearly abducted Nick’s girlfriend from an ER in Baltimore, and the Hard Ink team had been avoiding them ever since. Granted, he and Jess were outside the city now, but hospital admissions created digital records and paper trails that those with the right capabilities—and questionable ethics—could follow if they were motivated enough. And these mercenary sonsabitches clearly were just that.
Which meant Ike needed another plan.
In a flash, he ran downstairs to the bathroom. He ripped the shower curtain open and knocked Jess’s clothes out of the way, and then he turned on the cold water. Christ, given how hot her skin had felt, he worried the water might be too cold, so he made it just shy of lukewarm and hoped that would do the job.
Back upstairs, he pulled back the covers and scooped Jess off the bed. She moaned and turned into him, her face burrowing against his chest. “I’m gonna take care of you,” he said. Though the sheer heat soaking into him everywhere they touched was picking at those never-healed places inside him from the last time he’d made a similar promise to a woman he cared about—and failed.