Nauti Intentions

**Note: This is an unedited excerpt**

He knelt beside her, checked her quickly for any broken bones or wounds before lifting her into his arms.

Ragged pain twisted his guts, surged through him. She was so tiny. Barely five five, all that long black hair flowing around her, splattered with blood. Her face was white, eyes dazed, but they were open.

"Alex," she whispered his name. Did she try to burrow closer?

He'd seen more death than any one man should have to see in his lifetime, but nothing, at no time, had ever pierced his soul as the sight of Janey pierced it now.

He checked the room quickly, his gaze meeting one of the Federal agents in the room. Chaya Dane, Natches lover. She was calling for a car for immediate transport to the hospital.

Alex turned and rushed through the back of the house. Clasping Janey to him, feeling emotions he didn't want to feel. Anger, grief, loss, fuck this, loneliness. Because he'd let this happen. He should have made certain she was at school. He should have checked on Janey.

A car screamed to a stop in front of the house as Alex loped across the yard, the sniper rifle slung across his back, Janey in his arms.

"Major. Here." One of his men jumped from the front of the car and raced to the back passenger door.

Throwing it open the other man took the rifle and rushed back to the drivers seat as Alex slid into the back, holding Janey.

One hand pressed her head to his chest. She was weak, unable to hold herself in place.

"I have you Janey." He pushed the hair back from her blood splattered face, checked her eyes. They were dilated. Dazed.

"My hallucination," she slurred.

"Okay. It's all yours," he murmured, checking her pulse, the weakness in her limbs.

"You kiss me."

Alex froze. His eyes lifted to the foggy depths of hers.

"What?"

"My hallucination," she stumbled over and slurred the word. "You kiss me. This is mine. You just said."

The Sergeant was racing through town, a siren blaring from the car, rushing her to the hospital.

"Janey."

"Mine." Her eyes filled with tears. "It doesn't all have to be ugly, does it?"

Ah Christ. His heart was breaking apart. He was fearless. Fearful. Yet this one tiny, almost broken young woman was stealing his soul with the simplest request.

"All yours, Janey."

He ignored the Sergeant. He cupped her face, stared at those perfect, pretty lips. Pale pink, her lower lip lush and tempting. He touched it with his thumb then lowered his head to give her something that wasn't ugly. Something that wouldn't hurt her.

His lips whispered across hers and he realized, this would never be enough. The memory of this would never be enough. He wanted to sink into those beautiful warm lips and feel her moving with him, against him, as hungry for him as he was for her.

She sighed against the light caress, her lashes fluttering open to meet his gaze. Sleepy, drugged. The light green of her eyes was nearly overtaken by the dilation of her pupil. Whatever they had pumped inside her was too powerful, too much. She was too fucking tiny.

"Sergeant, you're moving too slow," he snapped, pulling Janey to his chest again, realizing his voice was a rough rasp, unlike the cold, hard tone he normally used. "Put some lead in your fucking foot."