Night Hush

by Leslie Jones

  She watched as he tossed back the rest of his iced tea in one long swallow. His head thrown back and the strong column of his throat working had her aching to put her lips where a single drop of condensation slid from the glass to his chin. To lick it off, then lick down his throat, to trace her hands across his collarbone, to explore the muscles of his shoulders . . .

  “You keep looking at me like that, I’m going to lose all my noble intentions.”

  Heather jerked her gaze back to his face, a guilty flush rising in her cheeks. His words had been light, but the expression on his face was intense, his dark eyes probing her, the heat unmistakable.

  Rather than answer, she pushed herself to her feet. Walking down to the long windows, she gazed out at the panorama below her. Miles and miles of sand and rock and scrub, then the rising peaks of the bare, jagged mountains. For the first time since she’d been here, she failed to appreciate the raw beauty of the landscape. Instead, it seemed barren and inhospitable. Empty.

  Lonely.

  A wellspring of realization hit her. An epiphany, lighting her from the inside out. Heather felt desolate, too. She focused on achievement. On success. Not on ­people, or on relationships.

  She felt rather than saw Jace come up beside her. He didn’t speak.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered.

  He didn’t say anything. He simply dropped cash onto the table, clasped her chilled hand in his warm one, and guided her to his car. Neither said a word as he drove to his little house. God, she was tired. Bone-­deep weary.

  Maybe she just needed a nap.

  With Jace?

  No. No, no, no. Down that path lay disaster. Sure, she could sleep with him. Once, maybe twice. And word would get back to her unit, and every testosterone-­laden, thickheaded moron whom she had rejected over the past year would be all over her, all over again. She’d get no peace. Her reputation would suffer, and that she could not have. She was under no illusions; her assignment at the 10th Special Forces Group worked only as long as she could command the respect of her superiors, peers, and subordinates. If her commanding officer thought for one second she was a distraction to his men, she’d be rotated back Stateside before she could say, “Unfair.”

  Jace pulled into his tiny driveway and killed the engine. Turning sideways in his seat, he draped a wrist over the steering wheel. “Hot tea,” he said.

  Heather nodded, unfastening her seat belt. She would be safe here. She could rest. Nurse her wounds—­the ones no one could see—­and hide for a while. Just for a little while.

  She followed Jace into his house.

  He led her into the kitchen, where he put on a kettle. He scrounged through his cupboards, eventually coming up with a box of chamomile tea. “Ha!” he said. “Knew you were still around.”

  Heather smothered a laugh. “Not a tea drinker, huh? I didn’t really think so.”

  Shaking his head, Jace grinned at her. “Not on your life. Coffee all the way.”

  “Then who . . . ?” Heather clamped her jaws shut. She turned away and pulled open the refrigerator, peering inside and pretending she hadn’t spoken. It was none of her business. None at all.

  She didn’t hear Jace move across the floor, but his heat blasted her as he stood directly behind her. “My mother,” he said softly, sliding his arms around her middle and pulling her back against him. He was solid and warm, and she let herself lean against him, just for a moment. “She visited six months ago. Couldn’t get to sleep without the stuff.” He shuddered, and Heather laughed.

  Jace turned her in his arms and pulled her in more tightly, silently offering comfort and strength. Even knowing she should pull away, put some distance between them, she found herself sliding her arms around his waist and laying her head on his broad chest. Just for a minute. His heartbeat, steady and strong, under her ear.

  Something inside her relaxed.

  The kettle began to whistle. Heather was all for ignoring it, but Jace eased himself away. Grabbing a cup, he dropped the teabag into it and poured the water. Some splashed over the edge and onto his fingers. He cursed, pulling them away and shaking his hand.

  Heather laughed.

  He slid a glance her way. “My pain is funny to you?”

  Heather shook her head, but snickered. “Kinda, yeah. Three weeks ago, you went out, deep into a hostile area. You fought a ton of bad guys and went on the run for twelve hours straight, dragging me along. All that without ever losing your cool. A little hot water burn just doesn’t seem like much next to that.”

  Pulling a wounded look onto his face, Jace held out his fingers. “It’s a big burn. Huge. In fact, I might lose my fingers.”

  Chuckling, Heather took hold of his hand. A jolt of electricity shot through her. Whew. The man was potent, that was for sure. She bent to examine the burn, finding only a small patch of reddened skin. “Yes, I can see the severity of the wound. We’d better get you some serious first aid.” Acting without thinking, she bent and kissed the skin, soothing it. What was she doing? Where was her sanity?

  It was Jace who stopped her, easing his finger free and stepping to the refrigerator. He opened the door and stood there, peering inside and not moving. Finally, he cleared his throat.

  “Do you take milk in your tea? Sugar, lemon? Actually, I don’t have any lemon. And I think this milk expired last May.”

  Heather let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Nothing, thank you.”

  “Why don’t you sit out on the couch? Or at the dining room table.”

  “All right.”

  How could they sound so normal? She herself felt anything but normal. Jittery, and like her skin was too hot and too tight for her bones. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. I’ll bring the tea out. Go sit down.”

  Heather left the kitchen. She curled her legs under her on the sofa. Soft music filled the room, some sort of gentle jazz she didn’t recognize. Figured a man who couldn’t be bothered to buy his own furniture would have a sophisticated sound system. He handed her the cup of tea and perched at the other end. Heather sipped, scalding the tip of her tongue. Good. Maybe it would put her mind right. She was getting in too deep here, and really, nothing had happened. They’d shared a few kisses, that was all.

  They sat in a faintly uncomfortable silence. She wrapped both hands around the mug, feeling chilled in a way she couldn’t explain. When she finished the tea, Jace took her mug without a word and set it on the coffee table.

  “Lie down on your stomach.”

  Puzzled, she glanced up at him. He met her gaze, his expression unreadable. “You’re cold and tense. I promised I’d be good. So turn over, Langstrom. That’s an order.”

  She tried to laugh, but nothing came out. Finally, she simply did as he said and stretched out along the sofa. He sat next to her, his hip nudging her back a bit. She tensed as his hands settled onto her shoulders, but relaxed as he did nothing more than rub.

  It felt heavenly. He worked the tension loose from her muscles with a sure touch, avoiding the few remaining yellow patches of bruising. He started at her neck, working his way down her shoulders to her back, kneading along her spine and into her lower back. She groaned in appreciation.

  “Pleasepleaseplease, don’t stop,” she found herself saying.

  Jace laughed. “Not a chance, sweetheart.”

  He worked on the knots in silence, the only noise the soothing music. His touch was leaving little licks of fire in its wake. Her skin came alive, her body humming in anticipation of his touch. When his hands left her, she pressed her mouth closed to prevent herself pleading for more.

  He started again, this time at her feet. His fingers pressed along her heels, down the arches, to her toes. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had given her a massage. Nor had she realized how tense her muscles clenched until his magic fingers smoothed
across her calves and up the backs of her thighs. And while there was nothing sexual or suggestive about what he was doing, her nipples contracted, and moisture gathered at her core.

  She kept expecting him to touch her more intimately. Her body was so tuned to his she nearly turned over right then and there and begged him to make love to her. True, she wasn’t entirely sure if she would welcome a more intimate touch or not. It was a lousy idea; she’d established that already. Still, she found she was disappointed when he finally got up and went to the coat closet to pull out an extra pillow and comforter. He tucked her in like she was a child, then sat again at the foot of the couch.

  “That was amazing.” More than amazing. Too bad massages like that didn’t come bottled at the store, without the complexity of entanglements like the ones Jace Reed represented. And she definitely wanted more. Wanted his mouth where his hands had been. She blew out a breath, trying to calm her body. “Thank you.”

  He didn’t answer. Puzzled, Heather lifted her head and craned it around. Jace was staring at the floor, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Long moments passed. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision, because he looked over at her. She turned over and scooted back into a sitting position. Whatever he meant to say was obviously important to him.

  “Two years ago, we were on a mission . . . somewhere.” Somewhere classified, he meant. His voice was low, and she had to strain to hear. “We weren’t welcome. There was an al Qaeda presence there, protected by the locals. Our mission was to find and extract a particular person of interest. During the exfiltration, an RPG hit our helicopter. Blew off one of the struts and part of the tail. We went down pretty hard. The impact killed one of my teammates. Three others injured.” He took in some air and let it out slowly. “Including me. Broken arm, some cuts.” He paused, as though weighing what he should tell her. Or maybe what he was willing to put into words. Heather found herself holding her breath.

  “The objective—­the person of interest—­was unhurt. Our primary mission hadn’t changed. Get him out and into American hands. That was the priority.” He paused again, struggling with how to tell the story. “There was a firefight. The team needed a diversion, needed time to get away. Dougie and I held the line long enough for a second helicopter to extract the rest of the team.”

  Jace stared at the floor again, perhaps lost in a haze of memories. Heather could relate. She’d seen that look in the mirror a lot the past few days.

  “Dougie and I were captured. It’s a hard thing, to capture a Delta Force operator. But these guys were well organized, well armed, trained, and lucky.” He shifted so he could rest his elbows on his knees, head down. “They took us up into the mountains, where they had all the advantages. They knew those mountains. All the caves, tunnels, passages. Everything we didn’t know.” He rubbed both hands over his hair, then laced his fingers behind his head as he stared at the floor. “We figured they would parade us around, show off their prisoners. Make it real public, you know? But they didn’t. They wanted information. Hell, maybe they just had a hard-­on to crack a combat applications guy.” He glanced at her. “Sorry. They wanted to break us.”

  “I’ve heard the word before,” she murmured, fearing if she spoke louder, he would stop talking.

  The ghost of a smile crossed his lips and vanished. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It took the Joint Special Operations Command nine weeks to get any information on our whereabouts. It took another two to put together a viable extraction plan. Our guys came for us, but it was too late for Dougie. He died . . . he died three days before rescue came.” Jace cleared his throat again, and Heather knew he was trying to control strong emotions. Heather turned her head away, pretending to look out the front window, giving him at least a pretense of privacy as his throat worked convulsively.

  “I’m sorry.” It was so inadequate, but she didn’t know what else to say. Good Lord Almighty. What could she say? It was horrifying. Jace and Dougie had been prisoners for nearly three months. Three months of . . . of what? What had they endured? Compared to what her imagination conjured up, her paltry four days seemed insignificant.

  He seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts. “I didn’t tell you that to diminish your own experience. I was a seasoned combat veteran. At the time, I’d been with Delta for six years.” In other words, he was capable of withstanding capture, and she was not. Heather bit her tongue over her retort. Hell, maybe he was right. She doubted she would have been able to take three months of abuse, especially not after the sheik had proven whatever point he intended to with her body. Not without losing her mind. She swallowed hard.

  “I just, I don’t know, wanted you to know that yeah, I do get it. Not everyone would. But I do. So, if you want to talk . . .”

  “I don’t.”

  “But if you do.”

  “I won’t. But thank you.” She scooted back down, tucking her feet up and pulling the blanket over her shoulders. Despite Jace’s confidences, she couldn’t face her demons. Not yet. Maybe not ever. “Thank you for telling me that. I know it was hard for you. But what I really need is a nap. Is that all right? If it’s a problem, I can go . . .”

  “No.” His voice was absolute. “It’s no problem at all. I still want to keep an eye on you. Dr. McGrath didn’t want you on your own, you know. I wasn’t making that part up. You’re not as well as you think you are. You’re still in the early stages of recovery.” He stood up. “Besides, I need to hit the rack, too. I’m leaving around two in the morning, so I gotta catch a nap. Why don’t you take the bed, and I’ll bunk down on the couch?” He stood beside her, obviously expecting her to get up.

  Heather sat up, but did not relinquish the blanket. “Where are you go . . . oh, never mind. I know you can’t tell me, anyway.” She sighed. She missed her work. Especially, she missed knowing what was going on in the world. Having insider information, as it were, by reading the intelligence information reports every day, by talking to the locals. “I’m not going to take your bed. If I stay, it’s here on the sofa. Take it or leave it.”

  Jace looked down at her, a soft warmth in his gaze. “I’ll take whatever I can get.” There it was again. That aching tension between them.

  Heather plucked at the blanket, turning away from him. “Go to bed, Jace. Alone.” He moved away, regrettably. Why did he pick now to listen to her? “Sweet dreams.”

  He twisted to see her from the second stair, a roguish grin splitting his face. “Only of you, baby.” He bounded up the stairs.

  The room was immediately colder.

  It was best, she told herself. And repeated it a dozen times. Her body still burned where his hands had run over her body. What would it be like to have him give her the same massage, but linger over the strokes, turning the entire experience unbearably erotic?

  Where was he going? Did his mission have anything to do with the Kongra-­Gel? The whole situation still bothered her. Everyone at her debriefing agreed that since the SCUD had been destroyed, the threat was over. They discounted the Eshma chief of police’s involvement. But they hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen the antagonism flickering in his eyes. Her gut said he was involved.

  Her gut said a threat still existed.

  She hoped Jace’s mission shed new light on the situation. Maybe he could help her figure out what was going on. He had eyes on the ground, while she was annoyingly all but bedridden. Soap operas, her ass. Maybe she could arrange to have Jace report back to Dr. McGrath that she was fully functional?

  And that started her thinking about sex again. Fully functional, indeed! Was Jace in as much discomfort as she was?

  Forcing her mind off Jace and his magical hands, Heather stripped out of her clothes and dropped them onto the floor, leaving on only a T-­shirt and underwear. She put her attention to untangling the mystery of her kidnapping. And immediately fell asleep.

  She was back in her cell. Someone yanked her arms behind h
er. Cruelly bound them. The dirty cloth pushed past her teeth smelled like goat, and she gagged. Her tormenter glared down at her, one hand tangled in her uniform top, yanking her close enough to smell his fetid breath and see the cracked incisor when his lip curled up. He spoke to her, but she couldn’t understand him, and the more she strained to hear, the farther away his voice seemed. Whatever he was saying was crucial, and she had to understand. It was vital she understand. But he began to fade, growing smaller and smaller.

  “Wait!” she shouted. “Tell me!”

  The ghostly form turned back. “You will die,” he said. “You will all die. The debauched places that soil our beautiful country will burn, and you will writhe in agony. Allah has willed it.” He faded to smoke.

  Heather woke in a cold sweat, thrashing within the snarled binds of the blanket. Where was she? It took her several moments to orient herself. Untangling the blanket and throwing it off, she swung her legs over the side of the sofa, but did not try to rise. At the moment, she was aware of every single one of her nagging bruises.

  She tried to lie down again, but it was impossible. What if she slept, and he came again?

  The shrink had told Heather to sit with her feelings. Phagh. Why the hell would she want to do that? She never wanted to experience a single one of those emotions again. Sit with her feelings and be an objective observer, understanding they could no longer hurt her. Look at them and let them go.

  “Quack,” she muttered.

  But she knew the approach had merit. Facing her fears head-­on had always been her approach, whether it was the fear of heights that had led her to Airborne School, or her fear of snakes that had prodded her through Jungle Warfare School.

  This was different. How could it not be? She’d never been so helpless in her entire life. Bound, blindfolded, gagged, unable even to see her captors to defend herself. Until he wanted her. She hadn’t lied to the doctors, not really. Their exam had proven no rape took place. And the very thought of facing the man again sent shudders of revulsion and rage through her. If she had the opportunity to kill him, she would do so, without hesitation or remorse.