by Black, Regan
“I brought you clothes.” She pointed to the warm-up suit in the chair. “To tide you over.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll let you change,” she said, turning her back.
“A little late for modesty.”
She clucked her tongue. “I was taught it’s never too late to be considerate.” She heard the floorboards creak, though his footsteps were light as he crossed to the chair.
“You can turn around now,” he said after a moment.
He’d traded the towel for the pants and was zipping up the jacket. Stoic or hot, dressed or undressed, he remained mouth-watering sexy. “Want me to change too?”
He shook his head and her skin warmed again as his gaze swept over her from head to toe. He was fine with her in something skimpy, but he didn’t like letting her see him. Suspicions confirmed: he had major body image issues. She might have found it weird if not for the scars. Clearly he kept himself in peak physical condition. That went along with the job. But he kept his scars – the real story – hidden from the world.
A sure sign there were a few unresolved emotional triggers as well, though she’d yet to meet a man who would admit that kind of thing.
“What do you want from me?”
“Honestly?”
He nodded.
“I was working my way up to seducing you for another round of incredible sex.”
He frowned at her like she was a complicated riddle he wasn’t sure he wanted to solve. She waited for him to give her some sign that more closely resembled an invitation to enter.
He waved her forward. “Well, you have my attention,” he said as she padded cautiously into the room.
Not quite the way she’d anticipated it, she thought. She’d wanted to plant her story idea in his head and then seduce him before he could turn her down.
Time for Plan B.
She set the laptop on the dressing table and continued to advance, but he stopped her with a cold look before she could touch him.
“You don’t normally sleep your way to the scoop.”
“What makes you say that?” And why did the apparent compliment irritate her?
“If you did you wouldn’t be as popular.”
She laughed, thinking of all the times she’d been promised more information in exchange for physical favors. “I’m all kinds of unpopular.”
“And your credibility would be shot.”
“That’s true.”
“Which leads me to believe you only want a piece of me as a distraction.”
“I confess it’s one hell of a distraction,” she admitted with a smile. “But it’s not worth it if you only see me taking something you don’t want to give.”
She backed up, her story idea could wait. She’d learned early on there was always more than one way to gather information and confirm facts. After what she’d learned on the Larimore story, she had even more research options in her arsenal. Her body still humming from being near him, she wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours, which gave her ample time to dig a little deeper and apply those new skills.
“Sleep well, John. We should have Bernie’s answer in the morning.”
“Stay.”
“Pardon me?”
He glanced heavenward and she caught yet another faint scar on his neck. “Choose your room or mine, but you aren’t sleeping alone tonight.”
“Afraid of the dark, Noble?”
“Only when there’s something out there.”
She swallowed. If he was trying to scare her again, he was doing a fine job. She couldn’t shake the feeling that while the Larimore story was wrapped – for now – the trouble was just beginning. If Larimore knew so much about her, she might be safer here in the guest room. She definitely felt safer with John close by. “Got a favorite side of the bed?”
He shook his head, so she took the side furthest from the door. In the event of an assassin entering through the window, she’d just have to trust John to handle it.
Now if he would only trust her to handle his story. It was more than simple curiosity. They’d been together less than a day, but he’d saved her life. Repeatedly. Whatever had happened to him, he didn’t deserve to live at the fringes of a life. She’d searched John Noble. Gone deep enough to recognize the information was too clean. Too perfect. Especially in contrast to the name on that mug shot.
Her cursory inquiries came back with conflicting information, but after his lousy reaction, she hesitated to bring it up again.
She’d found another alias tied to the job he’d taken on the West Coast right after Larimore’s daughter had finished testifying. Her emotional side wanted to explain that away. Maybe the company he’d worked with used false names to protect their employees. The story she’d done on bodyguards hadn’t mentioned such tactics, but why would they giveaway secrets?
She could see some logic in that, or maybe she just wanted to believe the convenient answer.
Still, which name was real? She wanted to help, to give him something in return for saving her from Larimore’s bounty hunters.
“Put that away,” he said. “Tomorrow may be worse once they know your story is ready to go to press.”
“Are you offering me a different sort of security or better form of entertainment?”
“Neither.”
She refused to be offended. “Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”
“No.” He pulled back the covers and removed the jacket he’d just put on.
“Hold it right there.” The ‘scratch’ which she knew had technically been worse was almost completely healed. It looked better now than it had in the bathroom minutes ago. “What kind of vitamins are you taking?”
For a second he stood frozen in place, his eyes hard. “I told you it was only a scratch.”
“I put your shirt in the wash. I watched the water turn red.”
He slid into the bed and pulled the sheet over his torso. “I told you that wasn’t all my blood.”
She yanked the sheet down. “What I’d like you to tell me is the real story.”
“What if I seduce you instead?” He reached out and trailed a finger across her breasts. Her body responded immediately and she batted his hand away.
“Turnabout is not fair play this time, bud. Talk to me.”
“I wish I could.”
She sucked in a breath, utterly offended when he turned out the light and closed his eyes.
“Here’s a tip. Voices still work in the dark.”
“I can’t talk about it, Amelia. I’m sorry.”
“I can make you sorrier.”
He sighed. “It’s about trust.”
“Damn right,” she agreed.
“Believe me when I tell you I cannot be your next story.”
Fed up, she crawled over him and turned the bedside lamp back on. “Believe me,” she said, her hands braced on his strong shoulders, “when I tell you I want to hear it anyway. That’s nothing short of miraculous.”
“No.” His short laugh was bitter. “It’s a genetic experiment.”
Her eyes drifted across each of his scars. “I guess it took some time to perfect?”
“Basically.”
“Why?” She slid back to her side of the bed, but she kept her hand linked with his, afraid he’d bolt without the contact.
“I was either too curious or too bored to say no.”
“Oh, John.”
“Pity doesn’t help.”
She gave his shoulder a light slap. “It’s not pity, you dork.”
“Dork?”
“Just tell me and quit stalling.”
“There isn’t much to tell. I got in a bit of trouble on a deployment and they gave me an ultimatum. A new training program or a court martial.”
“You went for the training.”
“My mom would have been so upset with a dishonorable discharge and I knew the odds were slim that I could beat the charges.”
She held her breath, her imagination running off on wild, d
angerous tangents between each of his carefully constructed admissions.
“Mom was dead when I finished training. By then I understood I could never have seen her again anyway.”
Her heart broke for him, but still, she wanted to know how he’d survived. “These aren’t all war wounds.”
“No. Most of them are actually from training. We learned fast there was never anything less than live fire or all-out combat. No practice level for this program.” He paused. “The extra stuff came later, after we’d cleared the other hurdles. By then we knew not to say anything other than yes if we wanted to keep breathing.”
She was holding her breath right now, afraid to do anything that might interrupt him and stall the flow. Shadows clouded his face, his eyes. She knew he wasn’t seeing her or this room, but rather all those things he’d tried to forget.
“Late in the process they separated us. I figured the others who survived wound up like me, cynical, dangerous men with a few extra features to make us more valuable to the program.
“There were injections and tests. Nutritional supplements and more tests. It made the wilderness and urban survival courses look like sunshine and picnics.”
She wasn’t sure even her insatiable curiosity could handle learning what urban survival entailed.
“The first few weeks after the initial medical evaluation, I felt great. When I’d get miserably sick for a few days at a time, I realized they were infecting me with various crap on purpose.
“Apparently they were testing one of those genetic boosters you mentioned to make me heal faster. No one was very happy with the results until they tried a new approach.”
She knew, clamped her lips together before she said it first.
“My body had accepted the adjustment in an unexpected way. They’d been looking for an internal reaction, but my body put the benefit to work against physical, structural injury. While the lab coats ran calculations looking for the explanation, I learned within a few weeks how to control it.”
“You were shot at the airport. That was your blood.”
He nodded. “I keep replaying that moment and I can’t be sure if the shooter made a mistake or hit just what he wanted to hit.”
“Oh, John.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Sorry. Should I call you something else?”
He shook his head. “It’s not the name that matters, it’s the pity.”
“It’s not pity. Well, maybe a little,” she admitted when he glared at her. She wasn’t sure what shocked her more, that he was a walking science experiment or his callous dismissal of his name.
Professionally and personally, her name meant something to her. She couldn’t imagine letting go of that anchor, that solid affirmation of life and purpose.
“Is something wrong that your wound didn’t heal immediately? That so much evidence still lingers.”
“No. Like yours, my body will heal things eventually on its own. Faster if I give it my full attention.”
“That’s cool.”
“I used to think so. Sometimes it’s better not to heal.”
Her imagination went blank. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the things he must have seen, the pain he must have endured. “What’s your real name?”
He shook his head. “It’s history. Old news. Like I’d give you something to research anyway.” He spared her a quick glance. “Neither the name I was born with nor the family I was born into exist anymore. John Noble is the only name you need to know.”
He might as well be holding a placard that he’d leave as soon as she was safe. This morning, just a few short hours ago, she was right there, completely on board with that plan. Now, not so much.
She pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “I told you this was off the record,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Contrary to your low opinion, not every reporter abuses a trust.”
“Not just opinion,” he muttered.
“Yeah, I unraveled some of that nonsense related to the mug shot they tried to intimidate us with in the airport.”
“You’re a pit bull,” he said, but he didn’t look irritated about it. “What will it take to make you drop that?”
“Hmm.” Clearly pushing harder would get her nowhere. This man had been pushed to the brink by people with resources and intentions far beyond hers and survived. Nothing in her repertoire would move him if he didn’t want to be moved.
“I’ll drop the issue if you tell me about one of the marks on your body.” He winced, but she barreled on. “The mark I choose.”
His eyes were wary and she knew he sensed the trap. “If I agree, you’ll drop the questions about Mexico?”
She held up a hand as if taking an oath. “I won’t dig into Mexico or anything else unless you ask.”
His brows arched in surprise. “Deal.”
Nodding, she picked up his hand and rubbed her thumb against his palm while she contemplated the myriad choices.
He flinched when her eyes lit on the scars closest to the center of his chest and following a romantic whim, she leaned forward and kissed the jagged scar above his heart.
Sitting back, she waited another moment, making her decision. “Why the chains around your wrists?”
“It’s symbolic.”
“That’s not an answer or explanation.” She smoothed her hand up his arm to his elbow and back down to his fingertips. He was all hard muscle and sinew, one hundred percent temptation layered over a deep gaping canyon of secrets.
His life had been stolen from him, changed irrevocably and something inside her insisted that she ease that burden he denied so stridently.
“It is an answer,” he insisted. “And it’s a true answer.”
“You’re teasing me.”
His eyes went wide. “I am. Huh. Amazing, but also true.”
She flopped back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling, her hands clasped on her midriff. “How about this? I won’t look at you, won’t touch you.”
“So?”
“Well, now you can bullshit me all you want and I won’t know if you’re lying.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” She turned her head to look at him. “Why do you think I meet my sources in person? Why do you think I’m so good at my job? I’m practically a human lie detector,” she said with a grin. “And I’m practically foolproof when I can see the body language.” She made a show of scrunching her eyes closed as she turned away. “Go on. Tell me a story about those scars, John.”
She heard him sigh. Felt the mattress give as he changed position, but she kept her eyes closed.
Most people didn’t believe it, but she’d cultivated a vast well of patience and learned to balance the adrenaline rush of running down a story with the necessity of timing the release of information.
If Larimore hadn’t been breathing down her neck trying to silence her permanently, she would have prolonged his miserable downfall, revealing his crimes piece by piece until the world turned against him and there was nowhere to hide.
John wasn’t the only expert here. She knew how to make people want to talk.
“Once upon a time –”
She giggled. A fairy tale beginning sounded so ominous in his deep, serious voice. “Sorry.”
He cleared his throat and that deep voice rumbled across her senses.
“Once upon a time, a soldier took a life. A sanctioned kill, ordered by his superiors, but it weighed on his heart. He knew remembering would be difficult, but he sensed forgetting would blacken his soul.
“So the soldier made a mark, let loose a bit of blood and flesh in memorial to the life ended.”
In her mind, she saw each link in that odd, twisted chain growing until it circled both of his wrists. She pictured John staring at the scars, some forgotten part of him aching for the lives he’d taken. Her heart broke a little and she firmly reminded herself this could very well be a fairy tale, gruesome as it was.
“The dead are lessons best remember
ed,” he whispered. “Those who live can make their own legacy.”
The mattress shifted as he rolled closer. His lips were warm against her forehead.
She knew better, but her curiosity won.
“And what about the soldier’s soul?”
* * *
John stared down at her, too shocked to speak. She’d kept her word, kept her eyes closed and her hands to herself. He rubbed at the scars on his wrist, debating how to answer her. He’d told her the truth, leaving out that he carved them fresh when they started to fade.
Maybe it was time to let them heal.
“It turned dark despite his best efforts.” More truth. Why did he so willingly offer it to her? He reached over and turned out the light. Flopping to his back, he hoped that would be the end of it. They both needed some sleep.
But the mattress shifted and her voice washed over him in the dark. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done today. I didn’t want a bodyguard, but I know I wouldn’t have survived without you.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look and see if the admiration he heard in her voice was sparkling in her eyes. He wasn’t a hero – despite saving her from a couple of assassins today.
“Do you think people can change?” It was the safest of the questions twisting and tangling in his mind.
“Not generally, no.”
His breath caught. One thing he’d come to count on was her brutal honesty. “Why,” he had to clear the lump from his throat, “or why not?”
“Based on my experience, it seems that most people don’t want to change.”
“And if they do?”
The bed creaked and the mattress dipped as she shifted closer to him. He longed to reach out, to take her in his arms. In no small part because he knew it would make him feel like a normal, whole man again for however long she let him hold her.
But when she learned the truth about him, learned what he’d done, learned all the things he couldn’t correct...
Who she thought he was and who he really was were two different men. He wanted to live up to her unspoken expectations, but too many bad decisions and final consequences made that impossible.
The stark reality splashed over him like a bucket of ice water. She would hate the man he’d been and any affection or admiration would quickly turn bitter. He didn’t want that for her.
