“It’s my turn to ask the questions.”
He looked at her as though he could inflict pain while he held her hand like she was breakable. “What?” His word was a bellow.
“You want information. I want information too. I give, you give. That’s how this works.”
His gaze roved her top to bottom and back again. “Who are you?”
“Still my turn.” She shook her head. “Who is Oliver?”
“You’re a stubborn woman, aren’t you?”
“I have my moments.”
“All the damn time would be my guess,” he muttered.
“Quit stalling and answer my question.”
Not Pete’s breaths came more easily as the minute passed in silence. His thick lips rolled and pressed against one another. When she thought he wouldn’t answer at all, his mouth opened. “He’s my friend. Who are you, Kat? Why are you helping me?”
“I’m a doctor.” The answer came so quickly she hoped he didn’t see through it. She was helping this man for so many other reasons, but most of them were helping herself. “I specialize in endonasal endoscopic surgery.”
“In layman’s terms, please?”
“I helped you because, if I hadn’t, you would’ve died.” She let that sink in for a moment. “Why is finding Oliver so important to you?” He gave a smirk, and she amended the question before he could answer. “Other than the fact that he’s your friend.”
His triumphantly curved lips fell. “I was extracting him from a hostile situation when the building fell on me. Are we in Switzerland?”
“A building?” Kat could not keep her mouth from dropping wide. At worst, she’d thought he’d been struck by a car. A building, though. How the hell had a building fallen on this man? Better yet, how had he survived?
He leaned forward very slowly, using her hand as leverage and to pull her closer. “You didn’t just happen upon me, did you?”
“It’s my turn.”
“You wasted it asking a stupid question.” He smirked and waited.
“No, I didn’t. What kind of situation was your friend in?”
“A psychotic terrorist held Oliver and his girlfriend hostage, using one to torture information from the other.”
Kat withdrew her hand and stepped back. Her mouth gaped. Nothing easily turned her stomach—after all, she had seen horrific things—but the mental image of a man holding lovers captive and inflicting pain on them to gain information coiled her insides.
“So, Kat, why are you treating me like I’m the perp in an investigation? Like I’m the bad guy?”
“Aren’t you a bad guy?” Her father had told her as much. His body told her the same. The man’s attitude carried distinction and honor like a badge. And his ego… Well, his ego was the most boisterous of all.
He harrumphed, and tiny lines formed at the corners of his eyes. “I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.”
“Whose?”
“The guy who brought the building down on top of me and, quite possibly, my friends.” Not Pete’s lids closed for several beats. He pulled in a full breath and eased it out in a hiss. “Before I’m finished with him, he’ll think I’m a very, very bad guy.”
A chill marched itself up Kat’s spine. She believed every word. Down one leg or not, this man could do damage and sleep well at night. The knowledge should have scared her right from the room, but in the hallway, a different type of danger waited.
Kat licked her lips and straightened her shoulders. There was only one way out of this. Through the scary woods. “What about me? Will I think you’re a very bad guy?”
“Doc.” His eyes softened, and his head shook slowly from left to right. “From where I’m sitting, you’re the best. You’re right up there with Oliver and my other brothers.”
“Do you have many brothers?”
“An entire garrison full.”
And suddenly, it made sense. Not everything, but the posture, while even in terrible agony, and the sense of pride and duty, commitment, and determination. “You’re a military man.”
“I’m complicated.” A small smile turned up one side of his mouth.
Her laugh escaped without permission, but she bit it back. “Tell me something I don’t know.” Whether he’d admit it, he had military written all over him like tattoos. Flags and anchors. Rifles and skulls. The country he served stained his skin more than an ink gun ever could or ever had. His dark skin held a perfectly smooth complexion, apart from a few awful scars, which now explained themselves.
“I need a phone.” His sudden announcement tossed her insides to the stars.
She exhaled through her mouth. “You can’t have one.”
“Why not?” His head tilted.
Kat looked toward the locked door. Not Pete didn’t know it was locked, and she feared his reaction if he found out, but sooner, rather than later, he would have to know. Still, she sidestepped the Blue Whale laying atop her chest.
“I had to turn mine in.” She held her features as neutrally as possible and turned back to him. “I don’t guess they’ll let you have one.”
“Who are they?” His chin canted toward the ceiling, and his gaze cut through her. “Hospital staff? Why can’t you have your phone on the floor?”
The inner strength she’d worked so many years to ensure shored up her resolve. She needed more information before Not Pete knew the details about their current predicament.
“Kat?” He reached for her hand and pulled her onto the bed next to his thigh. She was careful not to touch it for fear of inciting another round of phantom pains. “Look at me,” he demanded. Her body obeyed without reservation. Kat looked into his stoic, golden eyes and dark face.
“I’m most certainly a bad guy, Kat.”
Her eyes darted away. She didn’t want to hear that. All her instincts told her she could trust this man—over Aron, at the very least. It hurt to hear him admit such a thing.
“No. Look at me.” He cupped her chin in his warm hand and turned her face back to him. “To anyone hurting innocents, extorting them, or threatening my nation, I’m a very bad guy. To a woman looking for a husband, two point five children, and a happily ever after, I’m a very bad guy. To an ally, I’m the man they want at their back. To a woman looking for sheet-ripping orgasms, I’m the man who’ll have her on hers, and then on mine, and then who knows how, but it’ll be better than any fantasy she’s ever concocted.”
A gasp parted Kat’s lips. His words heated everything from the inside out. The urge to scream, “Yes, God, please,” pressed against her mouth. Between them, the air sizzled and popped as though they stood in the center of a bonfire.
His hand dropped from her chin. “I used to be, anyway.”
Holy shit. Holy shit. No one had ever spoken to her that way. Not ever. Her skin flushed so hot a thermometer would certainly register the change.
Not Pete looked away as though embarrassed. Kat couldn’t imagine anything making this strong, capable man blush. She wanted him to pull her against his lips, the ones she’d been sinfully coveting during his recovery, and one-up her fantasies.
The reason he’d been under her care in the first place smacked her across the face. It’d probably done the same to him. Harder even. A balled fist.
He’d have a long road ahead, learning to maneuver his life in a wheelchair and eventually how to walk again with a prosthetic. She’d only been through PT on a med school rotation and hated every moment of it. Her heart ached for him and his journey because it would be a hellacious one.
“Hey.” Kat reached for his chin and turned him to her. “A leg doesn’t define you.”
He growled, but his expression read annoyed more than angry. “It sure as shit throws some roadblocks in front of the things I love to do.”
“Surely, you’ve met roadblocks before.”
“One or two.” He smirked.
“And what did you do to them?” She was almost scared to know the answer.
“Mowed them over.”
“Then that’s what you’ll do now.” Kat smiled, downright pleased with herself. She’d outmaneuvered a tactical thinker.
Not Pete turned his face in her grip. His full lips grazed the pad of her thumb. She should withdraw her hand, but something held her there. Not him, not physically, but it might as well have been his hand holding her against his sexy kisses. It would’ve been easier to pull away from that. Instead, she dragged her hand across his face, letting her index and middle fingers caress the soft, dry surface. His lips embraced her fingers with delicate grazes.
The blood inside Kat’s veins turned molten. It coursed through her body, pooling in the most inappropriate and tantalizing places. Heaven only knew what he could do given more acreage of her skin. Damn her to the pits of hell—aka, the loss of her medical license—she longed to find out.
The door handle rattled.
Kat’s heart stalled inside her chest. Aron. She leaped from the bed. “Act unconscious. Don’t say anything. Please, trust me.”
Her heart slammed against her ribcage like an angry rhino demanding escape. Kat turned to the monitor, reset the heart rate, shoved the sensor onto his fingers, and wondered why the hell she’d told him to act comatose.
His heartbeat registered too loud after the silence and way too fast. The door beeped.
“Slow your heart rate,” she begged in a whisper.
11
“What the fuck?” a male voice demanded. The accent was European. Swedish, if he had to guess. Then again, the Finnish had a similar lilt.
“Excuse me?” Kat’s firm voice didn’t shirk from the profanity or aggression.
Hunter tried to calm his heart rate. Hell, that was what he did. Snipers commanded total control over their bodies. In the current what-the-fuck state of semi-arousal and total confusion, it proved harder than he remembered.
“I heard voices. I thought he was awake.”
“Once again, your powers of observation astound the masses. As you can see, it’s just me here, talking to myself. He has no option but to listen. While you never listen. You’ve yet to tell me who this man is.”
The strength in Kat’s voice—among many other things she possessed—impressed the hell out of him. Good thing the drugs still looped through his veins. Otherwise, he’d have a full-blown erection tenting the covers. It’d be hard to fake sleep with that.
“It’s not your concern,” the man barked.
The longer Hunter listened, the more apparent the depth of shit in which he waded became. Right about now, he couldn’t touch bottom…had he two legs.
“As for my patient, he is my concern, which is why I talk to him.”
“Why would you talk to a vegetable?”
“Even though he’s unconscious, it helps with the healing process. An unconscious person can hear. They may not understand or be able to respond, but sometimes, they remember feelings of hope and feel a drive to recover when spoken to. It speeds their recovery.”
Interesting. She lied again.
“What are you doing?” Kat’s shriek nearly had Hunter jerking upright.
“Speeding his recovery.” An ominous undercurrent weaved its way through the man’s words.
“No,” Kat demanded.
Shoes squeaked across the floor. The scuffle of clothing and body parts haunted his waking dream with images of Kat being manhandled. Hunter would blow his cover and kill this bastard if the guy so much as wrinkled her ugly scrubs.
“I don’t think so,” Kat bit, proving she could hold her own.
“You aren’t getting sweet on the forbidden fruit?” A sickening laugh rolled through the room. “Or vegetable, are you, Katrin?”
Why would he say that? Was she doing more than her job? Who was this man to her? Why did he care what she thought about Hunter or what her relational status was to this jerk-off? He had more important things to figure out.
“Don’t attempt to patronize me. I’m simply caring for my patient until he recovers so I can leave. Somehow, I don’t think your message would speed anything except my irritation.”
Hunter needed to get out of here and find Oliver and Base Branch, so they could come back and destroy this asshole.
“Two days, Katrin.”
“Or what?” she demanded.
“Or you’ll disappoint him.”
The door clicked shut. He moved to open his eyes.
“Don’t,” she quietly warned. “He’s liable to come right back or listen at the door.” “They’re holding you against your will.” Hunter growled at the realization.
“It’s complicated.”
Anger, pure and highly flammable, rolled off Hunter. The concerns about his leg and the drugs pulsing through his veins evaporated. Suddenly, he could lift the house off its foundation and throw it to the next country. He sat, gripping the bed rails so hard the thick metal threatened to snap under his hands.
Kat’s throat bobbed. Her pupils dilated, and her mouth gaped. His anger slid toward arousal, which pissed him right off. This cluster was among the most ridiculous he’d ever encountered. Her gaze jumped back and forth between his bare chest and arms.
“Look at me, Kat.”
“I am,” she whispered.
“Keep looking at me like that, and we’re going to have an entirely different problem.”
She blew a long breath between her lips and swallowed. Christ, she was too pretty for her own good.
“Have they hurt you?”
Some lip gnawing ensued before she said, “No.” It was a lie. Thank goodness, she wasn’t very good at the craft.
“Explain now,” he ordered.
“Tell me your name first.”
For a moment he stared, not understanding what she was asking. He’d more than contemplated attacking this woman’s mouth and she didn’t even know his name. Sure, he got around, but he always handled polite formalities first. He wasn’t heartless.
“I know you’re not Coma Pete. So what is your name?”
“Hunter Masters.”
“Ridiculously fitting.” Her eyes rolled toward the intricately carved crown molding.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing, really.” She fidgeted with her mass of curls for the first time. The move ensnared him like a bull to the matador’s red cape. “It’s just I called you Pete because it was friendly and safe.”
“Boring,” he offered.
“Never mind.” She shooed his chuckle away. “I heal people. It’s what I’ve loved since I was little. When I watched the doctor set Trey’s arm, I was hooked.”“Masochist.”
“No.” Her pixie nose wrinkled and wiggled the glasses on her nose. “It wasn’t the pull and pop. It was the broken to whole. He’d done that for Trey, and I wanted that ability.”
“Power,” he interjected. “Who’s Trey?”
“Knowledge,” she corrected. “He’s my little brother.” She said the last with a hint of a smile that faltered too soon.
“How did you get corrupted?”
“I’m not corrupted.” Her upper lip scrunched into a sneer. “I helped you, didn’t I?”
He looked down at his leg.
“It was your leg or your life.”
Hunter nodded, unable to speak. The rage had passed, leaving him weak and irritated. He leaned back, letting the fight drain from him.
“You need your rest. Seriously, I didn’t know if you’d ever wake. And if you did, I expected at least minor brain damage. You’re a fighter.”
A fighter. Shit, he could hardly keep his eyelids open, much less go hand-to-hand with the jerk who’d barged into the room. He still had too many questions to allow sleep to claim him. “How’d you get here?”
“I was asked to save your life.”
Kat sat next to him and pulled the covers up from his waist. “It wasn’t a hard choice.” She smiled sweetly.
“You’re being evasive.” His lids fell but bounced open again.
“You’re being stubborn.” She shook her hea
d at him. “Sleep.” The back of her hand pressed to his temple. “If you overdo it, you won’t help either of us.”
“And we need all the help we can get?”
“I think so.”
Hunter fell asleep to the gentle caresses of Kat’s fingers over his palm and up his forearm. It was probably the sweetest send-off to dreamland he’d ever had.
He woke in darkness with a bladder close to the point of rupture. Where the hell was he? Why did he hurt bone deep? Sleep crusted his eyes, and a film coated his tongue. The pressure in his lower abdomen warned him to get to the bathroom ASAP. His bladder was close to bursting. He rubbed his eyes and then blinked his surroundings into focus. The hospital bed railing flooded him with reality. No wonder he hurt.
The need to escape clawed inside his chest. If he could get back to headquarters, to his people, they could make everything better. Hunter couldn’t see a clock but sensed it was early morning. Maybe two a.m. Silence filled the large house—gaudy mansion. There might be guards patrolling in the bright exterior light. It spilled into the space, lighting the room as much as a full moon would. Let them have their light. As long as they didn’t have dogs, it wouldn’t matter. He’d evaded too many security details to count. However, before he launched any escape and evade tactics, he really had to pee.
Hunter grabbed the bed rail and slowly hoisted himself upright. Kat’s long slender frame curled into a ball at the foot of his bed. When he saw her arms hugging her legs to her chest in a protective position, his guts flopped. He hated that the smart, bold woman slept with such fear. He wondered what had happened in her life to make her that way, but nature wouldn’t let him ponder the question for long. He eased back the sheet and pulled his leg from underneath, careful not to disturb her. When his nub dangled off the side of the bed, the throbbing returned. It stole his breath for several moments before normalizing to an annoyance more than pain. His good foot, his only foot, met the cold, hard floor. Its toes spread wide, giving him the sturdy foundation he’d need to balance. He scanned the room for something to use as a crutch, but a vast expanse of nothing stood between him and the door he guessed was a bathroom. His bladder wouldn’t allow him to wait, and his pride wouldn’t allow him to wake Kat.
Captor Mine (Base Branch Series Book 13) Page 5
