Avenging Angel

by Janzen, Tara

  She sensed him stepping farther into the office, and a flush of excitement coursed its way through her system. Her face grew warm. Despite all of her common sense, she felt anticipation rise along the length of her body.

  “I saw the lights,” he continued. “I thought I should come up and check things out. I didn’t expect to find you.”

  “I didn’t expect to be found,” she admitted with a slight laugh. “I should have been finished hours ago.”

  He was still coming closer, and she instinctively rose to her feet. He made her nervous in a dangerous way that she didn’t dare explore. For the first time ever, they were alone in a room together, and the knowledge was having a dramatic effect on her.

  She glanced up, but her gaze got no further than his mouth. She stared, overwhelmed by the possibilities of being alone with him, and as she stared he smiled. The slow curve of his mouth and the crease deepening in his cheek promised a devastating combination of mischief and thrills that she suddenly wasn’t sure she could live without.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said, stopping next to the desk, closer than he’d ever been . . . close enough to touch.

  “No. No,” she stammered, gathering up her papers with both hands to keep herself from doing something rash and surely regrettable. “That won’t be necessary. I’m in the executive parking garage. There’s always somebody on duty down there.”

  “You’ll be safer with me,” he said. The conviction in his voice belied his smile and implied much more than a simple walk to the executive parking garage.

  Her hands tightened on the papers, and against her better judgment she lifted her gaze to his and told him the truth. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  In the next second she knew the truth had been a mistake. He wasn’t going to let it go as a slip of the tongue or a light flirtation. He had taken the truth to heart in all its meanings.

  He stepped closer and lifted his hand to her waist, his smile fading. His touch alone would have been enough to surprise her, but he went much further than a touch. He held her gaze with his and grasped her blouse, already half-pulled from her skirt. He eased it free, both shocking and arousing her.

  She’d never known a man whose initial move was to undress the woman he wanted. But then she’d never known a man like Dane Erickson. Her pulse raced when he slid his fingers under her blouse and caressed her waist. His hand was hot.

  She looked down to where he touched her, seeing the darkness of his forearm against the white silk of her blouse. His shirt was white, too, neatly rolled up from the cuff, revealing a secret. A tattoo marked his skin halfway between his wrist and elbow, a pale blue star outlined in a deeper shade. She lifted her hand to his shoulder and felt the strength of his arm come alive under her fingertips as he drew her closer.

  “Dane,” she said softly, lifting her gaze back to his. . . .

  * * *

  She’d whispered his name, Johanna remembered, which had made her humiliation complete when he’d turned and walked away.

  A flush of embarrassment coursed up her cheeks. She had definitely been attracted to Austin’s enigmatic bodyguard, against all the rules of professional conduct, against every ounce of her common sense.

  She heard his jeans drop to the bathroom floor, and the color in her face deepened. What common sense? she wondered. She obviously didn’t have the sense God had given a goose, if the extent of her romantic fantasies consisted of herself and a hired bodyguard with criminal tendencies.

  He groaned, and her eyes flew open. She just as quickly shut them again, her heart suddenly pounding. My God, my God. He was hurt. She’d seen blood, lots of it, staining his briefs and dried across his belly where he’d raised his T-shirt.

  He swore, sounding thoroughly disgusted with something, and she heard the shower curtain being drawn aside with a swift jerk. The swearing increased when he entered the shower. She let her breath out on a trembling sigh and slowly opened her eyes, then opened them wider. A new wave of embarrassment washed through her from her toes to the top of her head.

  Her captor had sorely miscalculated the position of the tape on the shower rod. The curtain didn’t reach to the wall on her end of the bathtub. Other than closing her eyes or making herself incredibly uncomfortable by twisting her body in the other direction, there was no way for her not to see him and his struggle. He was still decently covered in his briefs and T-shirt, but she knew that condition wouldn’t last long.

  She watched, mesmerized, as he inched the T-shirt up his torso, careful of whatever wound had caused all the blood. His back was smoothly muscled, well defined, a slowly revealed line of sweat-sheened skin from waist to shoulder. She had touched him there once, she remembered again uneasily, laid her hand on his shoulder and felt the muscles bunch and slide beneath her fingers as he’d moved her closer.

  He swore and swore again, softly and vehemently, as he pulled the shirt over his head. When it was off, he let it fall into the bathtub with a splash and leaned forward into the spray, looping his wrists over the shower head. A low, masculine groan rumbled up from his chest as he bent his head under the water and let it sluice off his hair and face.

  He suddenly looked vulnerable and in dire need of protection, this man who was paid to protect. From the amount of pink reddening the water at his feet, she guessed his underwear was as stuck to his body with blood as his T-shirt had been. Therefore, logic told her it was a mere matter of time before he took those off too.

  Less time than she’d thought, she realized, when he hooked one thumb into the side of his underwear and began pushing down. She should look away now. Prudence required it. Decency insisted. She ignored both.

  Dylan felt her gaze the way he’d always felt it, like a hot touch on his skin. He’d realized his mistake the first time he’d moved the shower curtain, He could have cut her free and repositioned her, but like he’d said, he wasn’t shy, and he would have bet a thousand dollars against her looking.

  So he’d lost a figurative thousand dollars. Just looking at him wasn’t likely to shock her, and she was unlikely and unable to do anything that might shock him. She could always look away, whereas his options were a damn sight narrower. He needed to get himself cleaned up and doctored, and he needed to do it before he fell asleep on his feet or passed out.

  With his goals firmly in mind, he clung to the shower head and doused himself with the little bottle of complimentary shampoo. He picked up the neatly wrapped bar of soap and used his teeth to rip the package open. He spat the paper out, and it fluttered to the bottom of the bathtub. Wincing, he ran the soap across his chest and down over his belly. He had a few more bruises than he’d thought, and a shallow cut under his right arm. His groin was fine. His butt was in pretty good shape, too, except for feeling flat as a pancake from two days of hard driving across the heartland.

  Carefully re-anchoring himself to the shower head with his left hand, he lifted his left leg and soaped his thigh and calf.

  “Damn,” he muttered, coming across another nick in his skin. That little bastard, Johnny, had managed some quick work with his knife.

  Dylan found another cut on his right thigh. All his small pains had kind of melded together into one big ache. Now he knew what was where. The big cut, the deep slash on his chest, had maintained a personality all its own throughout the last two days.

  Finished with his body inventory, which had included another cut low on his right shoulder, he ran a hand through his hair, shampooing and checking for damage at the same time. The inevitable bruises surfaced as lumps, nothing of concussion quality. He was pretty damn hardheaded.

  He turned around to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. Then he remembered she was watching. Squinting against the water running down his face, he met her surprised gaze. Her hazel eyes were wide and startled from the fast trip they’d made up his body.

  He grinned despite the effort it took. “We’re gonna have a problem here, if you’re not careful,” he drawled.

 
Johanna was speechless, trapped on her end of the shower rod with a guilty blush streaking across her cheeks. When he turned back around, she dropped her head into the cradle of her arms and groaned softly.

  Dylan heard the muffled sound and was surprised to find himself physically reacting. Who would have thought he could be stirred to arousal in his condition? His warning her about “problems” had been more along the lines of a joke or a hope. He wasn’t the man of steel. Yet she’d made a soft sound, and he’d instantly equated it with a response he could draw out of her with his mouth on her body, anywhere on her body, though certain particular parts did come to mind.

  In the seconds it had taken him to register her embarrassment and capitalize on it, he had noticed plenty about her anatomy. Silk T-shirts had a way of clinging all on their own. Adding steam and humidity made them wonderfully indecent. Her breasts were full and beautifully shaped, curved to fit the palm of a man’s hand. Her bra was lace. Her damp skin shone like cream-colored satin.

  He realized he was feeling better and better, a condition he would have thought impossible five minutes earlier. The woman was a tonic, her presence a soothing balm on his aches and pains.

  A grin eased its way across his face. He had saved her life. She was alive because of him. He was winning.

  Five

  Johanna rubbed her wrists with her freed hands. The skin wasn’t chafed or sore—he’d been too careful for that—but the action kept her from wringing her hands. She hadn’t quite recovered from his shower—she doubted if she ever would—and now he was proposing something even more outrageous. She nodded as he explained what he wanted her to do, even though she had no intention of complying.

  “I think three or four stitches ought to do it,” he said, looking at her from under raised eyebrows, as if she were a child he was trying to convince to eat her vegetables.

  She nodded again, all the while thinking she was an attorney, dammit, not a paramedic. Didn’t he know that?

  After his shower, he’d left the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and returned dressed in a pair of dove-gray jeans and nothing else. He’d brought his duffel bag, all the first-aid supplies, and the sewing kit back in with him. He’d brushed his teeth, shaved, and combed his hair before releasing her, each action making him more of the man she remembered.

  Dane Erickson, Dylan Jones, it didn’t matter. He wanted her to do the impossible with the small package of needles and thread.

  “I think if you just set your mind to it and do it fast and clean, it’ll be a lot easier on both of us.” He kept talking, his gaze shifting from her to the needle he was sterilizing, and she kept nodding.

  “Leave yourself plenty of thread on each end to tie off. Make every stitch separate.”

  “Right.” There was no way on earth she was going to stick a needle into his flesh. Her gaze drifted down his chest, past the cut slashed below his collarbone. He was beautiful, more so than she’d once imagined, all sleek muscles and golden skin. But there were signs of a hard life, nicks and bruises—and that awful knife wound. She couldn’t do it.

  “Don’t worry about hurting me. I’m not going to scream or knock you over or anything.” Dry laughter accompanied his statement.

  “Okay.” Her voice was bleak, her heart pounding an erratic rhythm.

  “I don’t suppose you have any penicillin on you? Or anesthetic?” He laughed again, a soft, gravelly sound she doubted he ever got beyond. She knew he was trying to relax her so she could do the job that needed doing. He was the one who was hurt, but she was the one shaking like a leaf.

  “No. No anesthetic.” She responded automatically, without any attempt to match his wry humor. She didn’t have even the smallest smile to offer him.

  He had kidnapped her, dragged her through the night with a gun at her head, and she hated him for that. He had embarrassed her beyond the ends of the earth during his shower, and she hated him for that. Then he’d gone and been brave and very matter-of-fact about what needed to be done to hold his body together, and he’d stirred her respect to life. He’d made her feel compassion, and she didn’t know what to think. She remembered what he’d made her feel months ago, when he’d been Dane Erickson and she’d been safe behind her executive desk, and that frightened her. It was the only thing left that did frighten her. The night had been full of threats and violence from the instant he’d grabbed her, but there wasn’t a mark on her. He’d told her twice he didn’t want to hurt her, and he was a man who got what he wanted. He wasn’t going to hurt her, not with his hands, or the shotgun, or any of the other myriad weapons he had stashed in his duffel bag along with his clothes.

  “Ready?” he asked, pulling a length of thread through his antibiotic-cream-smeared fingers.

  “No,” she said softly, her jaw tightening, her emotions suddenly getting away from her. “Damn you, I am not ready. You can’t make me do this.”

  He lifted his head, and his gaze flicked over to where he’d laid the shotgun on the vanity.

  “No,” she repeated, aware of the action and the subtle meaning behind it “You don’t scare me.”

  “I could.” He let his gaze drift back to her. The threat was clear in the mahogany depths of his eyes.

  Johanna knew she was playing with fire. Austin had called Dane quiet and dangerous, and both descriptions were true. But an attorney wasn’t much use to anyone if she let herself be pushed around. She faced him squarely, her chin lifted.

  Dylan noted the obstinancy tightening her soft lips, the stiffness of her shoulders, and he lowered his eyes, letting her win. He wasn’t going to shoot her, and she’d finally figured it out. But he still needed her help. He was as tough as the next guy, tougher than some, maybe tougher than most, but he’d be damned if he thought he could sew himself up.

  “Please,” he said. The word came out rough and foreign sounding, and he realized it had been a long time since he’d asked anyone for anything. Within seconds, he knew it hadn’t been long enough.

  A long, tense silence ensued, stretching between them and filling up the small space. Dylan was sorry he’d asked. Damn sorry. He didn’t mind looking like a mean son of a bitch, but he hated looking like a fool.

  “Get out,” he said under his breath, turning away from her.

  He busied himself with his preparations, waiting for her to leave, not really caring how far she went. He’d saved her life once, and once was more than he’d thought he could pull off. She’d seen Austin and his goons. She was smart enough to go to the police.

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  Dammit. Even if she went to the police, they couldn’t protect her, not the way he could. She wouldn’t last forty-eight hours without Austin picking up her trail, and once he did that, she wouldn’t last another two.

  He turned to retract his command and caught her rising from where she’d sat on the edge of the bathtub. As she reached toward the vanity he grabbed her wrist. Their eyes met, and he finished pulling her to her feet.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he said.

  “So have I,” she countered, her voice no less angry than it had been before. She tugged on her wrist.

  He held her just long enough to reestablish his authority.

  Agreeing in silence, he sat on the counter next to the sink and Johanna took the needle in hand. She knew what she had to do . . . sort of.

  She looked at his chest and the neat slice arced between collarbone and breast. Logically thinking about stitching him up and actually doing it were going to be two completely different experiences. That was her first realization. The second was how soft his skin was beneath her fingers. She touched him lightly with her fingertips, but the softness and warmth of him registered as if she’d caressed him with her open palm.

  Damn. Of all the men who worked for Austin, why did he have to be the one to be a part of her personal crisis?

  She stepped away from him and averted her eyes. “Where are the scissors? I don’t want to start this until
I have the scissors handy.”

  “Here.” He pointed them out, lying next to the sterile bandages and the extra tubes of antibiotic cream.

  “Fine,” she muttered under her breath, returning to her station in front of him. His knees were on either side of her hips, not touching her, but noticeably present. Sewing someone up was close work. There was no getting around the need to touch him, the need for sharing the same intimate space.

  She steeled herself to do the impossible, willing herself not to falter. Despite all he’d done to her, she didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want her cowardice, inexperience, or ineptitude to cause him more pain. She expected it to be difficult to get the needle through his skin.

  It was.

  Dylan swore, one harsh word. She pushed harder, forcing the needle through, and his cursing became a softly spoken, endless litany. He gritted his teeth against the pain and the lure of unconsciousness. If he passed out, she’d be out the door in a minute. The game would be lost and they both would die.

  The thread slipped through his skin less painfully. His relief was a tangible entity flooding his senses.

  “You smell the same,” he said roughly, speaking the first thought that came into his mind, needing to hear the sound of his own voice to keep holding on.

  Her concentration faltered for a moment, showing in the hesitation of her hands before she tied off the stitch.

  “Your perfume,” he explained. After just one suture, he didn’t think this was such a great idea. Sweat had broken out on his brow, his muscles were twitching and jumping, but he liked having her close. It helped fight off the weakness trying to engulf him. “I could always tell when you’d been in Austin’s office. Your scent would be there for a long time after you left, real subtle, but I could always tell. It used to drive me crazy.”

  She raised the needle for the second stitch, but he wasn’t ready. He grabbed her wrist again when she would have pierced his skin.

  “Don’t.” There was an edge to his voice.