Quietly, he finished his work and released her ponytail. “Just one second more,” he said as he pressed an antiseptic Band-Aid gently to her scalp and smoothed it in place with his fingertips. “There you go. Good as new.”
She moved out of the sizzling hot hearth of his masculine body, pulled her sweater’s collar up and gathered her jacket. Shaking her head, she tossed her over-abundance of dishwater-blond ringlets and frizzy tangles to cover the incision as much as to hide her vulnerability. Her one-and-only elastic had disappeared during her very hectic day. She occupied herself taming her messy curls. Taming her messy emotions, too.
“You must be tired,” he said softly as he peeled out of his gloves and tossed them onto the napkin, “and you’re cold. Come on. I can’t let you go without warming you up.”
Dragging the fur wrap back around her, he overlapped the edges under her chin. And it happened. Agent Ky Winchester breached the unspoken rules of fraternization between federal agents and private contractors. He tugged her slowly backward onto his warm lap and against the comfort of his broad, muscular chest. He circled her inside the steel bands of his arms and held her, his chin on her other trembling shoulder like he knew she needed a hug after her less-than-harrowing surgery. “Are you okay?”
Eden gave in to his offer. She didn’t think where this simple gesture might lead, just tipped her head against his jaw and murmured, “Yes, thanks.”
What could’ve been the beginning of an intimate encounter—wasn’t. He pulled away from the simple contact. “Remind me what your pilot’s name was again? We can’t leave him on ground level.”
How terribly unromantic. A whimper lifted up her throat at her foolish and thoroughly unrealized expectations. This wasn’t her long-lost friend hugging her. This was just an impersonal man making sure his impersonal patient was strong enough to travel so he could complete his impersonal task and go home. He didn’t have a clue who she really was in his life, or how much she’d suffered with him.
Oh, snap. I am so dumb. Was he married? Did he have kids? She gulped at the depth of her stupidity. Of course he was married. That had to be why she’d lost track of him after Afghanistan. He’d probably gone straight home and married the childhood sweetheart who’d been waiting for him, the woman who’d nursed him back to health. He’d probably fathered three kids by then. Why wouldn’t he have? She was the one without a life, not him.
“Charlie Sweets,” she murmured, sucking up her pride. “His name was Charlie Sweets. He was a father and a grandfather and... a very nice man. He cared about people, and he cared about me. I buried him in a shallow grave just west of here. I need to notify his wife and sons.”
“Shh. I’ll take care of that,” Ky soothed, his voice rumbling low in her ear again. “My boss employs enough people. One of them can make the notification. Don’t worry.”
Eden closed her eyes. The butterflies in her heart sprang back to life at the contact of her forehead with the scruff on his bare chin. With his breath. His body seemed warmer than hers. Broader. Harder. She couldn’t miss the effect she had on him, not with the way he had readjusted his, umm, gear. Was there really a Mrs. Winchester in his life? God, she hoped not.
“I’m safe with you, aren’t I?” She wanted to look into his eyes, but he was too close and he had a tight grip on her. She could barely turn. Please tell me you’re not married.
“Yes, you’re safe with me, Eden Stark, but I’ve got to ask. Do I know you from somewhere? Every time I look at you, I get the crazy feeling we’ve met... in some other lifetime.” He hesitated, like he was as unsure as she was.
She twisted in his arms to at least make eye contact. A hint of concern furrowed his brows, but his eyes, his intense amber eyes, the darkest honey rimmed with deep brown cocoa. Filled with glints of golden light. Confirmation hit her hard. She didn’t need to see his scars anymore. It is him. I’m sure.
“Are you married?” she blurted out instead of, ‘Are you hitting on me now? Please say no. I mean yes.’
He shook his head. “Hell, no. You?”
“Ah, no, I, umm, I’m too busy.” And I’m the dumbest woman ever. Nice job, Eden. Just ask, why don’t you? Blurt it right out. Embarrass him, and put yourself out there like you’re the ugliest, most desperate wallflower at the prom instead of an intelligent agent in the middle of Frozen, Nowhere.
She held her breath. The tender moment begged clarity, but she had none to give. As much as she wanted to tell Ky how she knew him, he must never know the extent of her psychic abilities. This handsome agent wasn’t meant to be a part of her world. It had to be enough that she’d saved his life in that other reality, and that he’d helped her tonight in this one. There could be nothing more.
Swallowing hard, she wiggled one arm out of his grasp and cupped his jaw, her thumb beneath his chin and her fingers along the scruff of his cheek. She shouldn’t have done that. The second she touched him skin to skin, their psychic link had other plans. Eden became the tortured one. Suddenly, she was the one hanging from an iron chain in a far-off cell, her body on fire with stinging welts, her blood dripping to the filthy floor below her swinging bare feet, the concrete already stained with other crimes.
Eden choked back a cry, suffocating the need to scream. Empathy for all he’d endured at those wicked men’s hands scorched through her. She felt everything. The stabbing. The cutting. The slicing away of his skin with the USMC tattoo and the layers of pectoral muscles beneath it. Blackest despair swirled up from the floor and wound its clinging tentacles around her neck, strangling the light out of her. The knives cut razor sharp. They went too deep. Into her soul. Her heart. Cringing into herself to escape the pain, she slipped into a spinning, whirling vortex of inky, oily fog.
“Eden! Eden!” Ky’s faraway voice reached for her, pulled her back into the light, away from the grasping clutches of his nightmare, now hers. The scales of filth and blood fell away. She found herself turned and tucked under his chin, breathing heart-stoppingly hard, listening to the kettledrum of his matching panic beneath her ear. With his bare hand pressed tight against the back of her head, she could smell his fear for her through his jacket. It smelled as strong as hers.
“Eden. What just happened?” His fingers were strong and gentle at the same time, splayed protectively through her hair, holding her to him. Caressing her. The thunderous pounding of his heartbeat calmed the ugliness of the vision away. For one moment, Eden felt in sync with him. Her pulse slowed. She could breathe.
Eden swallowed hard past the dry knot fading in her throat, letting her panic go. It had been a long time since anyone cared enough to be scared for her or to hold her like Ky was. She closed her eyes and absorbed the moment even as she lied, her voice more air than words. “I’m okay. Just another dizzy spell.”
She licked her lips, sick and tired of feeling out of control. Like her fainting spell, this episode made her look mentally weak, which she wasn’t. What had happened to her usually reliable second sight and the strength it gave her? Everything seemed scrambled since the crash. She clung tightly to Ky’s jacket, holding on for just a second longer to catch her breath and her balance.
“You freaked the hell out of me,” he murmured, his lips moist and warm on her forehead, “and you’re lying. I can tell.”
You’re right, she thought. But I can’t tell. Not everything. Not now.
Without thinking, she sank her forehead to his chin. Wrong move again. She should’ve stopped the second he leaned away from her. She should’ve quit while she was ahead. Before his body went rigid. Before he flinched under her touch and released her. Before he all but shoved her out of his arms and scrambled to his feet.
“Hey, listen. I’ve got a set of TEAMwear for you,” he said too quickly, the hands that had just soothed her now deep inside his backpack and pulling out a plastic-wrapped package. “It’ll keep you warm. It goes over your clothes. I’ll leave while you dress. Hurry. Put it on.”
“Ky, wait. What’s going on?” she a
sked, but there was no answer.
He’d already gone.
Chapter Seven
I can’t breathe!
Ky climbed out of the tent, needing distance from the very volatile situation he couldn’t begin to resist, but couldn’t endure. One called Eden Stark.
She shouldn’t have touched him. The first time shocked the hell out of him. He’d honestly thought she’d gone into some kind of a seizure, but the second time she made skin-to-skin contact just plain freaked him out. The instant the satin smooth skin of her forehead touched him, he knew he’d overstepped his own preset boundaries. He’d touched her first, but she shouldn’t have touched him back. Not like she did. Not so damned—nice. Like she cared. Like she wanted a whole lot more than a messed up man like him could offer a smart lady like her. Like there really was hope for him.
There was no way to explain how messed up his mind could get, to be so close to his angel but so scared it really was her. That he wasn’t worthy of her. That he’d come this far for nothing!
At least Tate was too busy examining the wreck to have noticed. Ky brushed the sensation of her dainty fingers off his chin. Butterfly wings and angel kisses—they’d shot a fifty-caliber round of potent sexual heat to his groin. How would that ever, in a million years, work, something as sweet as her mixed up with something so wicked as him? Something so damaged and mutilated and ugly? Something no woman wanted to look at, certainly not in her bed?
He scrubbed one hand down his thigh, surprised at the raging hard-on that refused to settle down. The world spun around him. His carefully crafted self-control crumbled around the edges. The first panic attack in months lurked at his peripheral. Yeah. There was no way he could tell her he’d dreamed her up in the middle of being tortured. Wouldn’t that be the line from hell? Hey Babe. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Oh yeah. I remember now. You were in that sweltering concrete cell while I was hanging like a side-of-beef about to get barbecued, weren’t you? Good times… not!
He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowed hard, and drew in a long, slow breath. David Tao, another TEAM agent, had taught him how to control these attacks. Breathe in. Breathe out. The slower the better. Cast your mind into the universe. Focus on that silent place deep within. Rotate your head. Relax. Do it again. And again. Keep moving.
Ky summoned every last self-preservation technique he’d ever learned. He looked up, the same as he’d done during those days and nights in Nizari’s prison. The sky always seemed the direction from where help would come, either from the hand of God or a ground-to-air missile. There was a time when he would’ve gladly taken either. He drew in a long slow breath along with the soothing memory of menthol and green eyes, the comfort of what had worked then. The real-life comfort he’d just run away from.
Brushing his hand over his forehead, his fingers came away damp with sweat. He tugged his gloves from his rear pocket and encased his hands once more. The awful truth was that he craved human contact—just couldn’t stand it. The paradox of having survived torture at the hands of psychopaths.
Even Lee Hart knew better than to clap a hand to Ky’s shoulder or to do any of that guy-smacking, chest-bumping bullshit during one of their games of jungle ball at the local gym. Lee had endured his own stay in Nizari’s company. Twice. Hell, he had his own demons to deal with, but the fear of human touch didn’t seem to be one of them. He had Tess, his sassy wife. A baby on the way. Ky had nothing but this out-of-control paranoia and a hard job to get lost in.
This operation into Ontario was just supposed to be one of those hard jobs, damn it!
He sucked in another lungful of frigid relief. Until now, he’d been content with his lot in life. He’d had to be. Women complicated everything, and he plain wasn’t ready to deal with another round of psychobabble, bullshit counseling, no matter how lonely he was. Yeah, counseling helped. So what? It hurt, too. All those carefully constructed trips down memory lane brought every last ugly moment of his past to the surface again. The last thing he needed. Ky avoided counseling as much as the opposite sex.
Isn’t this just great? Along comes my angel, and I run away like a friggin’ coward?
Ky locked his heart up and tamped his panic down to manageable. Survival kicked in once more. His breathing leveled out. It seemed ironic. He’d conquered most of the fears and phobias from his time served, just not the one he wanted most to conquer. The one he truly needed resolved in order to do more than just survive. To live. To be with a woman. To be handled without the imagined pain his mixed-up brain dished out.
Goddamned Nizari.
Pushing off the ground, Ky looked over his shoulder at the tent flap behind him. Despite the roaring panic attack, this encounter had felt—different. Eden’s touch hadn’t burned like other accidental touches had. Not really. In fact, it hadn’t hurt at all. Embarrassment flooded his gut at the very real possibility his mixed-up brain might’ve just jumped to the wrong conclusion. That he might have over-reacted. That this might be one of those bizarre once-in-a-lifetime unrealized expectations that actually turned out to be a good thing.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tate grunted under an armload of branches as he stalked out from the shadows. “Taking another break?”
Ky blew out a cleansing breath, needing to throw out a distraction before his buddy asked him what was wrong. Nothing slipped past Tate. He was perceptive like that, but Ky didn’t want him in his business. The guy already knew too much. “Something like that. Where’d you put the dead guys?”
Tate pointed up, one bushy brow lifted in curiosity. “In the trees where they’ll keep.”
Ky glanced into the branches overhead, still fighting for composure. Tate wasn’t wearing his goggles, either—probably because he’d been busy wrapping three dead bodies in plastic and rope, and Alex didn’t need to see that, either. They swung between the branches as if a really big spider had cocooned them. Three bodies dangling head-down from the high branches made for a scene out of a horror flick. Damned spooky was what it was. “Did you have to put them so close to camp?”
Tate shrugged. “Didn’t figure you’d care. It’s not like we’re staying here long. How’d it go with Stark?”
“Eden’s tough. She’s a trooper, but whiplash will catch up with her tomorrow. Wait and see.”
Tate grunted, “Eden, huh. You two on a first-name basis now?”
Ky released a slow, measured sigh, not going to discuss his close encounter. “Might as well. We’re here, aren’t we?”
“Is Alex good?”
“You know Alex. He’s pissed that things went wrong, as usual. He had Mother do some checking. Stark wasn’t lying. Zaroyin’s the real thing. He’s coming for her, and get this—twenty more FBI agents are missing. They might be in league with him and coming for her, too.”
“So? We can take ’em.” Tate’s calm assurance righted Ky’s attitude. “Where is she?”
“Changing into the extra set of TEAMwear we brought for her. Hope it fits. She’s smaller than I expected. At least she’ll be warm.”
Tate offered a scant scowl. “Let’s see it.”
Ky pulled the mechanical spider out of his pocket and uncurled his gloved hand, fighting the tremors in it. The device that had once rested against Eden’s skull now flexed in the center of his shaky palm like an insect, alive, its eight legs curling and uncurling. Twitching.
Tate presented his open palm. The same kind of thing flexed there.
“Where’d you get that one?” Ky asked, surprised.
“I figured since she had one, I’d better double-check her pilot, Sweets. Took it out of his head, right behind his right ear. I would’ve checked Koenig and Shields, too, but they were up in the trees by then.” Tate pulled a piece of wire out of his jacket pocket. “Sweets was wired, too.”
Things kept going from bad to worse. “Like Koenig and Shields? Chest to groin? Are you sure?”
Tate grunted. “One of us may need to check your lady friend a little better. She might be
wired, too.”
“She can do it herself,” Ky shot that notion down. Neither he nor Tate needed to get any friendlier with Agent Stark. The TEAM and the FBI had never mixed well before in TEAM history. They didn’t need to now.
He glanced back at the womanly shadow playing across the tent wall. It had to be tough pulling on a suit of TEAMwear in a small tent without enough room to stand up straight. He could understand that she’d missed the implant behind her ear. It was small enough and unnoticeable, tangled up in all that hair, but if she had the same kind of wire running down the center of her body as those other guys—well, a person couldn’t miss something like that.
Tate pulled two evidence bags out of his pocket and dropped the spider he’d found inside one. He handed the other off to Ky. “I thought the wires might lead to a locating device, but now I’m not so sure. The one in Sweets ended at a solid lump in his groin, the same as the FBI guys’. It might be one of those drug-dispenser things. You know, the kind a person can activate when they need a dose of medicine.”
“You mean a CADD pump?”
Tate glowered at the acronym, disdainful as ever when he couldn’t come up with the right technical terminology. The guy was blue-collar all the way to his toes. Give him a wrench and he could fix any car made before the eighties. Just don’t give him a computer and expect him to thank you for it. “If that’s what you call it, yeah.”
“A CADD pump is a continuous automatic drug delivery pump, Tate, if that’s what you’re thinking. My grandfather had one for morphine before he passed, only it wasn’t in his groin.” Ky secured the arachnid-like device he’d removed from Eden inside the evidence bag and handed it back to Tate. “You might be right, but the way this clung to Eden’s skull was weird. I felt bad hurting her when I pulled it out. It was anchored tight, and look at it. Those tentacles are still moving. Did you feel the spider legs on it? They look smooth, but they’re not. They’re rough. Like sandpaper.”
Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13) Page 8
