by Angel Payne
Her whole body convulsed, combating a sob. The sound burst from her anyway.
She had to hate him now. No. She had to forget him. Discard everything she knew about him. Thought she knew.
“I can’t,” she rasped. “I…I…can’t.”
Dizziness assaulted. She held Shane tighter, watching her name cross his lips again, but couldn’t hear. Her ears buzzed like a thousand cicadas had flown in. Blackness pushed at her vision, intensified by exhaustion, disbelief, fury, and heartache. She batted a hand, fighting it.
Fighting…it…
The darkness descended deeper.
Her mind surrendered. Her body followed, losing all strength. She was limp, helpless, truly part of the nightmare now. But before she tumbled completely, she felt herself smiling. Just one inhalation brought back the smell of the forest after a rainstorm…and the perfect musk of Shane’s skin.
Chapter Nine
If life in Special Ops taught a guy anything, it was about the gap between expectations and reality. The way you practiced the mission and the way you ran it? Usually universes apart. Guns jammed. Eggbeaters crashed. The 4-1-1 was wrong. And sometimes, guys died.
Yeah. “Dead” sounded like a great choice right now.
He screwed his fist against his chest while glaring around the sparse, chilly room deep inside the complex they’d landed at, condemning himself for the morosity. When Death was a groupie in a guy’s life, clinging for a chance to get in the tour bus and fuck everyone it could, it wasn’t a cool idea to swing open the door and issue the bastard an invitation.
Really, idiot? Probably wasn’t a hot idea to indulge a one-night stand knowing you were less than twelve hours away from hijacking an airplane, either—as part of the mission you were so invested in, you agreed to six months of deep undercover work. But you told Colton you could stay sane about this. You took the mind-fuck tests, proved you could keep all the emotions in tidy compartments. So stop wishing to buy the goddamn farm and get your shit back together.
Who was he kidding? This was about more than compartments falling apart. More than just his mind staying off the mind-fuck hamster wheel anymore.
It was about Zoe. And the way he’d messed her up in bigger ways than he’d imagined.
He set aside the smart pad that had helped confirm that conclusion, hating what he’d read in the mission files he’d pulled. The intel was a brimming bucket of corroboration for his suspicions after her words on the plane.
He’s a monster, and so are you.
She’d soaked it in enough venom to poison ten men. The accusation was her Biblical truth, rooted in something deeper. Shay realized it even before she’d passed out cold in his arms.
And now, she’d been out for so long.
He didn’t count the minutes she’d roused just before they landed, though he probably should have. He didn’t know many women who’d stir from a dead faint, sobbing while trying to belt him, before falling under again. That had been almost an hour ago. The nurse had come and gone three times to assure Zoe was simply wiped and dehydrated, but he remained skeptical—and stressed as fuck—about that.
The combo was a perfect stage-setter for Act Two of this ordeal.
The part where scared shitless was added to the mix.
Damn it, Zoe. I can’t let you slide under my skin anymore.
But that was exactly where she’d burrowed.
He let out another heavy breath. She stayed motionless against the pillows. An eerie stand-in for the vibrant mariposa he was used to.
Wake up, baby girl, and I’ll even let you punch me.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, he slid his hand beneath hers, and found her pulse with a couple of fingers. The steady but soft beat wasn’t reassuring. Could have had something to do with the IV in her arm, along with the hydration bag that still dripped fluid into her depleted body.
You need to get her out of this nightmare, asshole. Alive. And then you need to leave her the fuck alone and let her live the rest of her life without your filthy hands all over it.
He glided his hand up to her cheek. Goddamn, she was beautiful. Even now, so much paler than usual, bronze light seemed woven into her skin. Her lips were still a collection of exotic curves. Her eyelashes were thick feathers against her cheeks.
He prayed like hell for the moment she woke up.
In the same moment, he dreaded it.
She moaned softly. Her nose scrunched, making the sapphire stud glimmer. Her brow knitted. She’d been doing that a lot. Until now, he’d successfully battled the urge to reach and stroke her discomfort away. With his fingers so close now, he didn’t resist anymore.
“Mmmm.” She sighed as he traced his thumb over the arches of both her brows. When he got to the end, he reversed the caress, making her repeat the sound. Fuck. Even the triumph of taking a little of her pain away shot new blood into his cock. Who the hell was he kidding? The arousal began the moment he’d first touched her.
Not here. Not now.
Zoe blinked slowly. Winced at the bright lights. Closed her eyes again.
“It’s okay, tiny dancer.” He turned his hand over, soothing her brow with his knuckles. “Take your time.”
God knew, they had all the time in the world. Turned out that Cameron’s “science-experiment freaks” had been moved to extra-security holding areas, probably as soon as the feds had charted the new coordinates of the hijacked plane. The twist was a blessing. It was taking Wyst a while to crack the codes into the locked-down division, where Shay was pretty sure they’d hidden Mom’s lab too. During the wait on the break-in, Shay had time to ensure Zoe was okay before he rejoined Stock and the gang—and to try to clarify himself to her, as well.
That meant giving her the truth. All of it.
Now that she was here and in this deep on the plot, he abhorred the idea of keeping any more secrets from her. He couldn’t control what she did with all the facts after he pulled back the veil, but the woman had already proven one thing to him with breathtaking certainty. Her belief in their connection. The gift of her trust and passion last night, even with just minutes of validation…he’d been humbled. He still was.
He just hoped to fuck she’d feel half the same after hearing him out.
Christ. When would this all be over?
Theoretically, it could be soon. Rejoining Stock meant he’d also be minutes from finally finding Mom. He hoped. The few pages of intel Colton had procured—and it was literally a few—weren’t verified. Not even the spooks were allowed to know what specifically happened inside Area 51, which brought more confusion as to how the fuck Cameron had finagled his access beyond the base’s airstrip—but sometimes curiosity and the cat really were a shitty combination.
It was best to focus on what he could figure out, like the request he’d put in to fate for that bowl of good-karma kitty chow. Hopefully, there’d be some vittles left over for a viable exit trail out of this place capable of handling Mom, Zoe, and everyone in her dance troupe.
Zoe pressed her head against his hand…ironically, like a kitten seeking a caress. Shay swallowed back a groan. So much for trying to run the trouser tanker on empty. As his dick threw the hammer down and rammed his pants, he threaded his fingers into her hair.
“Sssshhh, baby girl. Easy does it.”
The edges of her lips tilted up. He committed the look to the most special box in his memory. “Shane…”
“Right here. I’m right here.”
“Mmmm. That feels good.”
“That’s the idea.”
The lines formed in her forehead again. She licked her lips and emitted a soft grunt before opening her eyes again. Her smile widened as she tilted her face toward his hand.
Forget the agony in his crotch. Her stare carved a canyon into his chest. He was able to return her smile only by stretching it over clenched teeth. When he’d prayed for her awakening, this was the moment he’d dreamed of. And the dread on the flip side of that? Any moment now, its justific
ation would come too.
“Wh-Where am I?” She gazed past him, over the gray brick walls, across the sterile white floor, and down to the hospital-grade bed. When her scrutiny fell to the tube in her arm, her eyes popped wide. “Ay Dios mio. What happened?”
Shay took her hand again. And held on with reassuring strength. “Don’t struggle for it. Trauma can be like that sometimes. Just breathe deep.”
“Easy for you to say.” Her pointed glance, referencing the fact that he was free from the tubes and monitors, almost made him chuckle. His little sarcasm factory was back. “And what do you mean, trauma?”
He stroked her knuckles with his thumb. “What do you remember last?”
“Well, I remember you. And us. And being together at the hotel—but then you had to leave. And I was sad.” Her grip tightened in his, making his heart pick up speed. It snapped a missing piece of him into place to be needed by her—but how much longer would he get to enjoy it? “Didn’t sleep much after I talked to Ryder.” She bit her lip. “We only talked for ten minutes, I swear.”
The canyon in his chest turned into a fucking gorge. “I believe you.”
“The next morning, I got Brynn and El, and we got on the plane to come home. And then—”
He felt his lips dip.
Here came the nightmare.
Her fingers twisted harder. Her face contorted. “Oh, Dios. And then…oh, God…those men…”
She wrenched her hand away. Scrambled backward in the bed. Once she slammed against the wall, she lifted a leg and kicked at him.
“Zoe. Calm down.”
“You! Oh my God, Shane. You—”
“Can explain,” he fired back. “If you’ll just—”
“You can explain? Caramba. Are you serious?” Her voice cracked as she hugged herself. The machines berated the air with beeps. The IV stand rocked, tugging at the tube in her wrist.
It was time to throw down another hammer. The one with the D on it. For Dom.
“Calm. The. Hell. Down.”
On the first syllable, he stood. On the second, he steadied the IV stand. On the third, he wrapped an unyielding hand around her left ankle. With the last, he secured her right.
She didn’t like it. Not one fucking bit. Her chest pumped on furious breaths. Her eyes brimmed with tears, their oceans turned to pain-filled seas. As Shay forced her to lie back, the muscles in her legs bunched, still fighting him.
Because there wasn’t enough tension in the room, the door popped open and a gentle-faced woman in a nurse’s smock appeared. In the two seconds he had to do so, Shay pressed Zoe’s eyes closed, commanding her to feign sleep again. Though every inch of her body was still taut, she picked up on the hint. Thank fuck.
“Hey-dee ho,” the nurse greeted.
“Justine.” Shay kept his reply cordial but brief. In the hour he’d known her, it was glaringly clear Justine had a schoolgirl thing for Stock and was texting him updates every ten minutes. “What’s up?”
“Is everything okey dokey?” She flashed a smile more fake than a toothpaste ad. “Miss Chestain’s monitor board just lit up like Christmas morning.”
“Just a bad dream,” Shay supplied. “She was all over the place. I managed to calm her down.”
The answer seemed to mollify the woman. For now. “Well, let’s hope she dreams about waking up soon. Cameron’s made his good faith move with those government goons by freeing all the passengers except those dancers. Last bus left about fifteen minutes ago. That means every one of those dancers is an important hostage now. He’ll want her back with the others as soon as possible.” With a nod, she added, “Besides, it shows them he’s organized. Has his logistics straight.”
Shay was damn certain Justine wouldn’t know a mission logistics chart from the Periodic Table of Elements, but he shot her a grin and a thumbs-up, which satisfied her enough to leave.
As soon as the door shut, he braced himself for Zoe’s reaction to the information she’d just overhead. Sure enough, she bolted up like a wildcat pushed by a hurricane. “Hostages?”
He framed her shoulders in his hands and impaled her gaze with his. Goddamn, this wasn’t easy. He yearned to get lost in those midnight irises of hers. For her own good and his, he twined his response into a command. “You need to calm the hell down, baby girl, or Justine will come back in and fiddle with all this shit herself.”
She sagged in his hold. Pained lines crossed her face. After she took several deep breaths, she rasped, “Tell me. And spare the damn sugar.”
Once more, she blew his mind in a brand-new way. What the woman had been through today would have turned most women into a quivering puddle under the table. Not Zoe. She sat like the hospital bed was a boulder in the Kunar Province, demanding the truth without the whipped cream and cherries. And damn it, that was what she’d earned.
“You’re a smart woman, Zoe. You know by now that the second Newport knows there aren’t any innocent lives at stake, he’s going after Stock with the intention of annihilation.”
As she nodded, the stark room lighting picked up the prisms in her new tears. “Sure. And the most heart-wrenching innocents are pretty young dancers, right? We make for damn good Breaking News. So he released everyone else and kept us.” Her shoulders stiffened, and she lifted a glittering glower. “And you helped him.”
Shay tensed too. Battling her glare with his. Fighting himself with the rest of his body. Fuck, how he wanted to just lean over and kiss her, win her over with the power of his passion as a John Williams symphony swelled and the credits rolled over their happy ever after.
But this wasn’t the goddamn movies. Things couldn’t be fixed by a lip-lock, some fireworks, and a Hollywood wrap. He had to try to make her understand—before he got her out of this mess and safely back to her life.
That meant he had to start with the truth.
“You helped him,” she repeated. “With all of it. Didn’t you?” In spite of her tears, every word she spoke was a harsh bite.
“I did.” His response came out with firm calm. Some CO in his past had once yelled, during the last mile of a long PT run, that the end of an ordeal was often when one gained the most clarity. Since he’d always kind of enjoyed those runs, he’d never understood the truth of it—until now.
“And you knew what flight it was the night before, didn’t you? That was what your text messages in the bar were about.”
“As stated, you’re a very smart woman.”
She returned his attempt at a smile with a disgusted glower. “So our time together, was that some kind of a perverted fun time for you? An extra twist to the Dom game, sexing up a woman before terrorizing her at thirty thousand feet?”
With a clamp of his jaw, he harnessed his frustration. Her conclusion was understandable. And now, if he had anything to say about it, erasable. “I had no idea you’d be on that flight until you mentioned it in the hotel room, after our fireworks finally faded.” And I could barely feel my toes after the magnificence of it.
She snorted softly. “About the time you decided to bolt.”
“And tried to talk you into catching a later flight.”
Pain flared anew in her gaze. “You didn’t try that hard. You going to blame the fading fireworks for that too?”
He took the risk of releasing one of her feet in order to guide her hand across to his chest. “To be honest, baby girl, you left behind a lot of live embers.”
She huffed so hard, it almost became a laugh. “For a guy who’s so good between the sheets, your timing really sucks elsewhere.”
“No shit.”
Her expression softened. She really was an insightful woman. “You’re conflicted about being involved with him, aren’t you?”
Shay took a deep breath. Here went nothing. Or perhaps everything. But knowing the nursing station had only a video surveillance monitor, which Justine had been using for the latest episode of Dance Moms the last time he checked, this could be his only chance for full disclosure with Zoe.
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“He’s a monster, a murderer, and a world-class cocksucker on several other levels,” he professed. “And as long as I’m dropping your jaw, I know exactly how you know that. I know about how Stock played the boys in the First Special Forces Group as a double agent, setting the trap for them that included Ethan Archer and Ava Chestain—your sister. And I know how the bastard and his buddies bribed Archer to dance to their tune by almost unleashing a thousand bees on your sister, making certain her epi pen for her allergy to them was nowhere nearby.”
“Mierda.” The word quivered as much as her fingers, still pressed between his hand and his chest.
“I understand now why you clocked him,” he went on. “Though I’ve been wanting to do the same thing for months, so now I’m jealous as fuck.”
She drew her hand back. He let her. He’d just thrown some wild revelations at her, and the biggest was yet to come.
“Why?” she blurted at last. “Why do you know all this? How do you know all this?”
Shay paused to make sure he regulated every note of his reply. “Read it while you were sleeping. In the final mission report.”
She arched sarcastic brows. “‘Final mission report,’ huh? Which you…what…conveniently pulled off the internet between checking your Facebook and watching videos of masturbating cats?”
He couldn’t help quirking his lips. “As intriguing as the cats sound, I used a simpler firewall.”
Her brows descended. “Firewall? How? Why?”
“Well, everyone needs a good cover story, especially reading detailed shit off a classified mission report.”
She nodded with mock understanding. “Sure. The one you obtained with your magical, ultra-high security clearance, right?”
He took another long breath. Her suspicion pegged right at the center of his expectations, justifying his decision to come clean. He desperately hoped she saw enough of his honesty—as well as the connection, compassion, and care he still had for her—to know he was being totally real. “I know it sounds crazy. But I don’t have to worry about clearance, Zoe.”
