But then, reluctantly, because she wanted to keep on kissing him like this forever, but right now they had things to do, she shifted slightly away from him, and he released her, just a little. Just enough to look down into her eyes.
“You’re really that certain?” he whispered.
“I am.”
He shook his head. “Part of me loves that. But it also scares me a little,” he admitted.
“I’m so absolutely certain, I’d marry you right here and now,” she told him, swiftly adding, “Oh, shit, that sounds so much crazier out loud than it did in my head. It was meant to reassure you, not check off the Yes, you should be scared of me box. For the record, I’m not asking you to marry me or even suggesting that—”
“Thanks, but I know you’re crazy and I’m good with it—and that came out wrong, too.” He winced as he smiled at her. “God, we’re champions. What I meant was, yes, I know that you’re not afraid to say what you feel and sometimes it comes out extra-unfiltered and crazy-ish-sounding, and I’m good with that. I don’t want you to change anything about yourself for me. Not ever, Tash.”
She hugged him tighter, her head tucked in against his chest, desperately wanting to kiss him again, but not wanting to stop him from telling her things that made her heart leap and thrill.
Her cardiac gymnastics weren’t just because she was surprised by his version of the modern-Darcy-ism of I like you and your crazy-pants just as you are, but from knowing that he cared enough to try to explain how he was feeling.
And sure enough, Thomas kept going. “What I really should’ve said was, I’m scaring me, a little. I’m scared about what I could feel for you, if I let myself—and wow, that’s some serious denial right there. Let myself? Could feel? Like I wasn’t in free fall the dead-second you made me do the not-my-sister-not-a-child math.”
She looked up at him, at that, because now her heart was slamming in her chest. Was he saying...?
Thomas pushed her hair back from her face as he looked down into her eyes, his mouth twisting into the slightest of smiles as he let her see his own vulnerability, his uncertainty, his... hope. “You know, that you plus me equals two unrelated, grown-ass adults who love the shit out of each other,” he whispered, “the rest of the world be damned.”
He kissed her again, and Tasha let herself sink into the taste and sensation of his mouth, his tongue, his lips, his arms around her, his body so solid and warm. The swirling timelessness of the moment was delicious and intoxicating, and again she wanted to stay like this forever, but he had a list of things to do, plus she had to ask, “Did you really just say that you love me?”
He laughed a little. “I did, didn’t I? Bonus points for using the extremely romantic word shit in the same sentence.” He was actually embarrassed by that, but there was no fear in his eyes as he met her gaze steadily.
“I have always found Thomas-being-Thomas to be a five-hundred on the romance scale,” Tash whispered. “Which normally only goes to ten.” She wanted to kiss him again. Kiss him, and then pull him back to the bedroom, although, wait, that mirror on the ceiling was maybe not the best choice for anyone’s first time together. So, the sofa. Yeah, that would be better, except... “Let’s not die,” she said instead.
“That’s my current plan,” Thomas told her. “Survive this; live long, happy lives.”
Okay. More sentiment that made her want to kiss the crap out of him. Tasha made her mouth form words instead. “What else is on your pre-wait to-do list?”
He laughed a little as he made himself let go of her and even step back, as he gestured toward the lower kitchen cabinets. “I’ve got to dig a bit under the sink. See what’s in there.”
She nodded as she forced her attention back to the peanuts, opening another jar and dumping it into a baggie, wanting to check off this task and move closer to the post pre-wait-prep part of this, which she was hoping would be wait while the bad guys continuously fail to get through the hatch, giving them lots of time to wait, and wait again. “Build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. What else?”
“Whoa,” he said, laughing. “Did you just...?”
“The cover story for that al Qaida magazine,” Tasha told him as he got to work pulling all of the various cleaning supplies—potential ingredients in a homemade explosive—out from beneath the kitchen sink. “Remember? That stupid rhyme was the headline.” It had been all over the news. “I was so freaked out—and you told me it was propaganda that was supposed to make Americans believe that Muslims as a group were ‘inspired’ by the attacks, when al Qaida was really just a tiny subset of haters, looking for frightened, angry boys to join their death cult. You talked me off the ledge a lot back then. Finding anything good? And by good I mean dangerous and prone to exploding when mixed with other chemicals?”
“Yeah, I think I can work with this,” he said.
“Don’t forget about the gallons of alcohol in the pantry.”
“Oh, I won’t,” Thomas told her. “But I’m looking for something that’ll have a noisier presence. More like a sound effect than a tool of flaming destruction.”
“You want it to go boom,” she interpreted.
“As loudly as possible,” he confirmed.
As Tasha opened another jar of peanuts, she tried to figure out how that made any sense. There was one entrance to the pod—and it was currently surrounded by the nasties who wanted them dead. As soon as Thomas opened the hatch, they’d be fired upon—unless they went out waving a white flag. And even with that obvious symbol of surrender, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be instantly shot and killed.
Unless Thomas wasn’t intending to open the hatch.
“Do you want them to think something exploded down here?” she asked. “Except that’s not going to make them pack up and go home. I mean, I wouldn’t if I were a bloodthirsty asshole hunting down two innocent fellow human beings who never hurt anyone—except I kinda did shoot one of them, didn’t I? God, I hope he didn’t die. Still, they started this. And they did try to shoot me, too, so actually I’m not sure what I hope, so maybe I’m bloodthirsty now, too. And I’m sorry, I asked you a question and then gave a soliloquy.”
He laughed a little as he moved some of the cleaning supplies to the counter on the other side of the sink. “It’s a potential diversion. I’m really just reviewing our supplies and considering options. Lot of what we do depends on one of the next items on my pre-wait to-do list, as you called it.”
“Which is...?”
“Find this bomb shelter’s escape hatch.”
Rio took the time to shower.
The truck stop might not have looked like much on the outside, but the showers were sparkling clean. He stepped in immediately, already lathering up his hair.
After he’d found the iPhone-needle in the dumpster-haystack, he’d handed it to Dave to wipe down and unlock, see if the prince had left any secrets hidden inside. Not that they needed it. They all knew exactly where the royal pain in the ass was going—back to the now burned-out ski lodge, to search for his girlfriend, the admiral’s niece.