by Angel Payne
She wasn’t sure what to expect once she’d entered the cabin—but this wasn’t it.
If there was such a thing as décor porn, she was sure Zeke was capable of corrupting people by the millions with his forest cabin version of it. Recessed lighting led the eye toward a sunken living room with a huge leather couch that was flanked by overstuffed love seats, all done in inviting shades of brown, russet and dark blue. Large seating pillows on the floor were covered in complementary fabrics. They were arranged around the fireplace, which soared through to the second floor, its mismatched stones forming an eclectic piece of artwork in their own right. Reflected in the floor-to-ceiling windows across the room, she caught a glimpse of the dining room and kitchen, both possessing the same inviting colors and comfortable woods. On the walls were unique pieces fashioned out of a combination of copper and driftwood. The one over the couch depicted a sunset with a family of deer. On the wall next to her, waterfowl took flight off a lake.
One word tumbled off her lips. “Wow.”
Zeke scooted past her to the thermostat. “I hope that’s a good wow,” he said while flipping on the heat.
“Here’s the part where I really get to hit you, right?” After he joined her in a soft laugh, she blurted, “Zeke, this is—I mean, I never expected—”
“I know what you expected.” He lifted a knowing smirk. “I like hanging out at the Bastille, honey. But I wouldn’t want to live there.”
“I wasn’t talking about the club.” She gave him an inquiring stare. “Come on. Even your apartment near the base isn’t—”
“I don’t live there, either.” He walked to the bar area, set into the alcove beneath the stairs, and swung down a bottle of Scotch along with two glasses. “That’s just parking space for my body when I’m not here or out on a mission. Here; drink it. In case you don’t know, that’s good shit so do it slowly.”
She made a face into the glass. “I’m strictly a wine girl, thanks.”
“You’re so blue, I’m going to call you Smurfette in a second. Drink.” He took a small sip from his own glass. “It’ll warm you up—and give you some liquid courage.”
“Courage?” The distraction of her curiosity lent the ability to tip the Scotch to her lips. Holy shit, he was right. It was like drinking fire and tasted just as horrid. Between a couple chokes, she asked, “For what?”
“For calling your brothers.”
Damn. She’d forgotten about that detail. “You promised I could look at your bandage.”
“After you call your brothers.”
“Now who’s doing the stalling thing?” She smirked at his peeved scowl. “I only need to call one of them, you know.”
“Close enough for rock and roll, honey,” he called while pacing into the kitchen. While he was gone, Rayna took another hit of her Scotch. Dear God, people drank this stuff on purpose? The only benefit she could fathom to the act was how every inch of her body acknowledged each warm sip. By the time he circled back into the living room with a sizable satellite phone in hand, her third sip was proving his theory true about the liquid fortitude, as well.
“You ready?” He extended the phone.
She took a deep breath. “Not really.”
Z’s eyes laughed at that, though the rest of his face was sober. “I’ll be right here.”
As you always have been. She yearned to say it aloud but knew where her weighted words would lead. He’d roll his eyes. Tell her she was full of shit. She’d finally get so fed up, she’d blurt out everything from the hypnosis session, and God only knew where that would lead right now. Z fiercely guarded the things that different people knew about him. Cross the lines into a life compartment in which you weren’t supposed to be in, like her visit to Bastille, and you suffered the not-so-pretty repercussions.
Right now, she was preparing for a metric shit ton of backlash from another neurotic man in her life. She just had to figure out which one.
She had seven choices on the big brother hot line. Actually, six. After the scene that went down in her kitchen on Friday morning, Trevor was automatically off the options list. She instantly crossed off Dallas, as well. He was eleven months behind Trev, a chronological proximity than made him just as much a butthead, especially since ATF had crowned him Special Agent in Charge on the squad. Finn and Shane were rarely reachable, a fact that had nothing to do with their Alaska addresses. Finn was simply surgically attached to his helicopter and Shane took the “ranger” part of his national parks badge to a different level of serious.
That left Rhys, Jenner, and Arah. Her heart leaned toward Rhys, who could throw down on the asshole act as well as Trev but had gained a voice of reason in the last year—by the name of Kelly. Rayna would love the chance to talk with him if only to nag the dork again about putting a ring on it with Kel soon. But Rhys wasn’t a morning person and a glance at the clock confirmed it was ten after four in the morning. That took Jenner out of the mix, too. He loved the dawn as much as his twin hated it, to the degree that he’d chosen a life as a fishing fleet captain. Jen was probably prepping his first net to toss out on the Sound right now.
Arah won by process of elimination, as he usually did. Rayna almost smiled as she punched in the number for the brother who was separated from her by eighteen months. She wondered what part of the world in which she’d find her guitar god of a brother today.
He got in a stunner at her by clicking the line open after one ring. “Rayna!”
That answered her question about whether her siblings had been contacted about all this yet. Nevertheless, Arah delivered another shock with his stress. Zombies could be invading half the world and Arah would merely write a guitar ballad about it.
“Wow.” She tried a teasing tone. “Were you sitting on top of the phone or something?”
“Where are you? What’s he done to you? Did you escape?”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Escape? Arah, listen; I’m fine. The shit they’re reporting—”
“I’m on my way to Seattle now. I’m in San Francisco on a fucking layover, but that gives Ava the chance to catch up with me and—”
“Ava?” Her astonishment punched both syllables. “Damn it, not cool. Why did you guys bother her? She can’t miss a day on the set. Bella Lanza is the most demanding diva on TV right now—”
“Who’s recovering from a nose job in Malibu, so chill, sister mine. Ava’s her stylist, not her assistant, so Bella’s ordered her away until the swelling goes down. As far as the ‘not cool’ and the ‘bothering her’ part, pull your claws back right now. The local news affiliates in LA have already picked up the story. Thanks to your sergeant being such a hunky piece of man candy, there’s a good chance the trashy entertainment peeps will carry it soon, too.”
Her stomach twisted like taffy from his report. She hated taffy.
“He’s not a ‘piece’ of anything,” she muttered, though every tastebud in her mouth watered as she caught Zeke’s curious frown. And he sure as hell isn’t mine. “And he knows what he’s doing, okay? You guys have to stay out of this. I mean it.” When her brother’s anxious silence stretched more than five seconds, she persisted, “Arah…”
He pushed out a hard grunt. “Fine. Trev and Dallas are already working with the police, all right?”
“No!” She yelled it before she could think about it. Since Zeke actually grinned at her with pride, she tore back in with a growl. “Not all right! Arah, you can’t trust them. None of you can. A lot of them are in the back pocket of a shithead criminal named Mua. He’s trying to capture and sell me again, Arah. Please, you need to listen to me!”
There was a pause that gave her hope, though she could practically taste her brother’s incredulity through the phone. Hell. If she was Arah, she wouldn’t believe what she was hearing, either. Police officials in collusion with criminal masterminds? People out to kidnap her, to sell her into slavery? It sounded like a TV show instead of her life. She prayed Arah would heed the desperation in her voice.
Finally, her brother asked slowly, “What the hell are you saying, Ray?”
Thank God. “It’s all lies,” she told him. “The scene they’re showing in that feed…it’s not the truth. Zeke was saving me from those two men, not the other way around. They work for the twin of the bastard who imprisoned Sage and me in Thailand. He should be in prison and according to all the records, he is, but he’s not. I saw him with my own eyes just four hours ago.”
“So why don’t you go on TV yourself and say that?
She huffed and took another sip of Scotch. “Remember the part where I said he was still after me?”
“But why?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
It wasn’t a lie. So much of what had gone down during their Thailand rescue had been tagged as classified by the CIA that it had been easier to tell her brothers only the surface details of what had happened. And the follow-up nightmare in that Medina mansion, which had ended up with her shooting King, hadn’t even happened according to the Army, the police, and most of the feds.
“Arah,” she pleaded after her brother’s vexed snort, “you have to trust me on this. And you have to tell everyone else that, too. I’m completely safe. Zeke is hiding me, not abducting me.”
Her brother let a tense pause go by. She could hear the airport behind him with its paging system, rolling suitcases, and beeping courtesy carts. It was all so normal yet it sounded surreal and distant from the high wire act that her life had become—again.
“If you want me to trust you, Ray, then tell me where you are.”
She grimaced. Z noticed and took her free hand. His firm, unflinching strength suffused her. “I can’t do that either.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Jeez, Hamilton.” Yeah, it was time to go for the undercut of the middle name. “Is douchebag fusion the new musical trend right now?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She swallowed and squeezed Z’s fingers harder. “Because there’s a better than half chance he’s listening to us even now, Arah.”
“Rayna, for the love of—”
“I’ve already been on too long.” Z’s darkening frown told her that much. “I can’t run the risk of him tracking this signal, okay?”
“Rayna!”
“I love you.”
She ended the call, shutting the real world off once again.
For a long moment, neither she nor Zeke said a thing. The room began to warm. She wasn’t sure if it was the heating ducts, the Scotch, or the proximity of the man who once again had transported her to a place of refuge and safety. She needed to thank him. She yearned to hold him. Instead, she jabbed a toe at the carpet and muttered, “So what now?”
Z let his hand slip from hers. She told herself that she was imagining his reluctance about the move. “I’ll get the first aid shit out. You can go to town on my neck, candy striper. Sound good?”
Despite her exhaustion, his indulgent tone made her feel safe enough to giggle. Maybe they actually could work their way back to being friends again…
“Yeah,” she murmured. “That sounds real good. Thank you.”
His mien stiffened a little. “But right after that, you get into the shower—or a bath if you prefer. While you’re cleaning up, I need to call Hawk and Captain Franzen. I’ll get the run on how they’re tracking Mua and make sure both of us are pulled off AWOL status for as long as possible.”
“Damn. I’d forgotten about that not-so-little slice of red tape.”
One side of his mouth quirked. “It helps to have kidnappers in high places, honey.”
She shot him another laugh. Zeke, clearly pleased with himself for inciting it, sauntered toward the stairs. She gave herself the privilege of watching him for a second. Sweet shitloads of sexy, the man was captivating. His leather club pants moved with his Sequoia tree legs like a second skin. His biceps and pecs fought the constraints of Max’s T-shirt. Nothing in any of his movements betrayed that he had a three-inch gash in his back, let alone hadn’t slept in over twenty hours.
And all she wanted to do, even in her own sleep-deprived state, was get her hands all over him again.
Not a good plan, Ray. Not at all. She fished through the fuzziness in her head to get back the words he’d issued in the car, after that toe-curling kiss they’d shared. Shouldn’t have happened. And it won’t happen again. So the man was beautiful and smart, especially about this. No matter how perfectly their bodies fit, they simply weren’t going to snap right when it came to the same sexual “Like” button.
She prodded her brain to agree. Shoved at the damn thing. Submissiveness? On a regular basis? Her? Right. And tofu was a great side dish for steak.
Tonight, she’d seen in glorious, living color exactly what that term meant. She closed her eyes and willed herself to pull up the images. She recalled what Luna looked like when Tait brought her in after the session with Z. The marks on the woman’s back…the limp languor of her body…the sparse rasps off her lips…
She blinked and all those memories vanished like magic act doves—all but the most disconcerting one. The expression that had blanketed Luna’s face. The peace in it. The adoration in it. The connection in it, reflected in Z’s own face as he’d knelt to her…
“Rayna?”
She blinked and looked up. He’d stopped on the landing halfway up to the second floor. His features didn’t hold a shred of that intense stare he’d exchanged with Luna. He’d even dropped the smirk of five minutes ago. Now he regarded her only with friendly, even pragmatic, expectation.
Ugh.
“Huh?”
“First aid kit’s up here.”
“Uh…okay.”
She followed him up the stairs. At the top, there was a large area that was just as comfortable as the ground floor. One side was lined by the balcony-style overlook into the living room. Tucked into the far corner was a window seat with plush pillows and a chenille lap blanket. But occupying most of the eye’s attention was the entrance that beckoned into the bedroom. Correction: the straight-out-of-her-wildest-dreams bedroom.
There was no way any person, let alone a linens lover like her, could avoid gaping at the bed. The clean angles of its Mission-style headboard were balanced by a dozen huge pillows in butter and honey tones. They were stacked horizontally down the center of a puff comforter that looked soft as fawn skin, and colored the same rich hue. The room’s drapes matched it, as did the cushions on a semi-circle shaped couch that was positioned in front of the stacked stone fireplace. A flat screen TV took up the space over the mantel.
“Holy…wow.”
Zeke walked ahead of her into the room. “At the risk of redundancy, good wow or bad wow?”
She glared in irritation that wasn’t entirely a joke. When he tossed a snicker back at her, she stomped over and punched the meat of his shoulder.
“Hey!” His expression became a glower. “What the hell?”
“You had that coming,” she accused. “And stop looking at me like that. I didn’t even knick you.”
His response seemed a humorous move at first, too. As he backed her up against the wall, Rayna let out more giggles—until he actually had her pinned there. One direct hit from his focused copper gaze and her laughter petered out.
“You only think that because I hide the knicks well.” Though they were likely the only human life for miles, he said it at a volume solely for her ears. “But I have them, Ray-bird.”
“I know.” Her trembling whisper blended with the damp musk of the rain in his hair, on his skin, dripping down his leathers. “Believe me, I know.” With her stare still locked in his, she scooped one hand around the side of his neck. “Zeke, there’s really something that I have to—”
“Shower,” he cut in.
She blinked. “Huh?”
His intimate murmur was gone. So was the crack, however infinitesimal, that he’d opened into the core of himself…only for her. Not the easygoing soldier-on-leave
self she normally saw, or even the dungeon-leather-and-chains-Dom self of earlier tonight. For a few seconds, she’d beheld the guts and heart of the man who lived far beneath all that. The man who’d once been a teen, gazing at her with those intense eyes on a stormy afternoon in a park tunnel.
Did he remember, too? And if so, why did he keep shutting her off like this?
“Huh?” she repeated in an even dumber blurt.
“My neck can wait,” he declared, “but you’re shivering like a can of pop that’s been used for soccer practice.” He looked down at her soaked, dirty clothes. “And all this is getting washed. Twice.” His brow knitted tight. “Shit. Now there’s a cluster of what-to-do, huh?”
“A…cluster? Of…what?” She sounded idiotic. Confusion and exhaustion were making her brain a puddle. She swayed on her feet during the minute he took to fish through the drawers of the dresser next to the bed. Nothing was any clearer when he turned back with a long-sleeved flannel shirt that had red and yellow parrots printed all over it. They were depicted in flight across fields of bright turquoise flowers. She almost let out a manic snicker. It was hideous.
“This’ll keep you warm. It’s one of my favorites. The socks are great, too. They’re designed for high mountain hiking, but I’ve broken them in. Really soft.”
She held the shirt up. It was going to fit her like a tent on a sapling. “This is yours.”
He flashed her a visual duh. “Were you expecting something different?”
“Maybe,” she answered, then amended, “Probably.” When his duh twisted into a what-the-hell, she explained, “C’mon, Z. You don’t have a stitch of anything that other…ermm…houseguests might’ve left behind?”
As understanding entered his features so did a soft smile. Hell, she loved getting that look from him. It lit up everything including his eyes and made her feel she was the only one who put it there.
