by Lori Ryan
Eleanor looked at her watch. It wasn’t very late, but she was worn out from the last few days. As much as she’d like to keep poring over what they had, she knew it was just as important to go in there tomorrow rested and sharp. If she was off her game at all, she could very well mess this up.
Tomorrow, she would need to assess whether Onur Demir was an ally the US wanted to foster or one they should cut loose before they formed the kind of potentially messy entanglement they were considering. She could look at the intel they had for days, but when it came right down to it, meeting this guy and getting a hands-on feel for what he was capable of was what would get the job done for her boss.
She stood. “Okay guys, let’s get some rest. We need to check in with Cheryl in the morning before we head out to see if she has any further information for us. Let’s meet back here at oh-five-hundred.”
To their credit, none of them groaned at the hour she quoted. They stood and filed out of the room. Duff gave Heath and her a silent nod before following her team.
Their group had taken over the entire floor of the hotel. She’d be staying in this room with her team across the hall in two of the rooms on that side of the hotel with the Deltas in rooms surrounding them.
Eleanor wondered if Heath would be staying with her overnight again. She felt better waking with his arms around her the other night. She woke from a nightmare where this time, she hadn’t been able to shake off the man who tried to grab her at the airport. She’d seen Heath running for her but it was too late as the man pulled her into a van and the van drove away as she struggled helplessly against his strength.
But Heath had been there when she woke and had held her as she’d drifted back to sleep, something she knew she wouldn’t have been able to do if he hadn’t been there holding her.
She turned to him now to find him picking up her small suitcase and shoulder bag.
“Come on,” he said, tilting his head toward the dividing door between her room and the room next to it.
“Where are we going?” She followed even as she asked the question.
He opened the door and Zip was there on the other side, holding that side open.
“We’re moving you to another room. We’ll bring you back here in the morning, but in the meantime, the room everyone thinks you’re in is going to be empty,” Heath said as Zip closed and locked the dividing door.
Duff opened the door that led to the hallway and silently waved them forward. Heath put a finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet and then slipped out the door with her bags in that stealth way they had of moving without making a sound.
She followed with what she hoped were quiet enough steps as they slipped out and turned right down the hallway. He went to the second door from the end on the left-hand side of the hall and it opened from the inside.
Jangles stood sentry inside, holding the door for them before slipping out himself with a grin and tap of his fingers to his temple for her.
“Flirt,” Heath groused as he put her suitcase on the bed.
Eleanor shook her head but she couldn’t help but smile. “He’s just being nice, Heath.”
He only shook his head and she knew she wouldn’t win that argument.
“Heath, I—” she paused. She wanted to say something about what had happened between them when they’d last seen each other years before. About how they’d left it all. She needed to clear the air.
“No.” The word came from him, husky and thick as he turned to face her.
He wasn’t touching her, wasn’t even near her, but there was tension thick and heady in the air between them.
“No, we shouldn’t talk?” She managed to get out.
“No need. The past is the past. I have a job to do now and so do you.”
She watched him and finally gave a nod. Heath was stubborn. Always had been. If he wasn’t going to let her talk to him about their past, she would have to wait until he was ready.
She moved to her suitcase and began to fidget, looking through it for the things she would need to get ready for bed. Would he leave and sleep in one of the other rooms for the night? She didn’t need to have a guard on her at all times, but God she wanted it.
She didn’t want to let him know how shook up she felt from the attempt to grab her at the airport. Her hand slipped and her toothpaste fell to the floor.
Heath was there, picking it up and handing it to her. The move brought him close again and he stood, inches from her for a minute. He was watching her mouth and she knew if she leaned in on tiptoe, he would close his mouth over hers and kiss her the way he used to.
Only she knew it would be nothing like it used to be. He wasn’t the young kid he was when they were together before.
Everything about this man said he knew what he was doing in the bedroom. He was intense and in control. He was no mere boy now. He had the experience of the world behind him and Eleanor had a feeling that experience would tell him how to touch her. How to kiss her and tease her and bring her to the point of begging before letting her orgasm in his arms.
She shook her head and stepped back, wanting to step forward instead. Wanting for all the world to lose herself in this man’s arms.
Her action seemed to break the spell that hung between them and he moved away.
“I’ll wait outside while you get yourself ready. Call for me when you’re done.”
Eleanor nodded and picked up her toiletries and her night clothes.
She would shower and dress and wash the cobwebs from her brain. It was all too clear that she wasn’t thinking the least bit clearly. And that would be dangerous going into a job like this.
Chapter 11
Heath watched Eleanor sleep, knowing she needed to be well rested today. For that matter, so did he. He needed to be sharp to make sure nothing happened to Eleanor, but somehow he’d been nothing but off kilter since the start of this assignment.
He’d been dozing in the armchair in her room, but the pain in his arm had woken him at three in the morning and he hadn’t gone back to sleep again.
She looked so beautiful sleeping. When they were dating back in high school, they’d never spent the night together. They had stolen moments at her house when her mom was at work or in the back of his Mustang parked on Hillman’s Pass at the top of the overlook where all the high school kids went to make out. But he’d never been able to fall asleep with her and wake up with her in the morning.
Not that this was really sleeping together, him in a chair and her on the bed. He wanted to curl up in the bed with her and pull her to him, but that wasn’t a smart move. He couldn’t continue to be stupid where this woman was concerned.
He wasn’t one of those people who fantasized about what couldn’t be. Not since he was a kid when he’d thought he could somehow earn his dad’s approval if he just tried hard enough to be the son his dad wanted. There was no making yourself into something you weren’t.
She mumbled something incoherent and rolled in her sleep, snuggling deeper under the covers.
Closing his eyes, he ran through all the scenarios for the morning. All the plans in place for getting her in and out of the compound safely. That was where they would be most at risk, on the way to and from the negotiations.
The compound itself should be fairly safe from attack. Demir and his men kept it fortified and guarded from any outside attack by the Kazarus military.
Unless an attack came from the inside.
Heath’s job was to think of any and all possibilities, to know where an attack would come from before it did.
So why did this feel more like him panicking over what could happen to Eleanor than him being prepared?
“You’re not sleeping,” Eleanor said sleepily, pulling him from his thoughts.
He shushed her, not wanting to disturb her sleep. “It’s all right. I was just thinking.”
“Can’t sleep?” She asked, shifting again so the sheet shifted, revealing one long lean leg to the thigh.
Hell
, she was going to kill him. She needed her sleep. He should get up and leave and take his insomnia somewhere else.
“Heath, I want to say something and I want you to listen to me and not try to stop me, okay?”
He fought not to freeze at her words. “Okay.”
She didn’t look at him when she spoke, keeping her eyes focused somewhere over his shoulder.
“I want to say I’m sorry, Heath. For so much, but mostly for hiding that night, for getting you into trouble with your dad.”
Now Heath did freeze. What the hell was she talking about?
“Sorry?” He tried not to let the words come out as a growl, but it wasn’t easy. “What the hell do you think you have to apologize for?”
Her eyes found his but then dropped just as quickly as she looked away from him.
“If I hadn’t hidden after …” he saw her swallow, “after it happened, you wouldn’t have been picked up by the cops. And if I’d just talked to you after that, maybe you wouldn’t have gone after Jason. Your dad wouldn’t have forced you out. You wouldn’t have had to join the Army. All of it. I’m just… I’m just really sorry it all happened.”
Heath’s head swam. He couldn’t say he wasn’t sorry it had all happened. The night his football teammate—a guy he thought was his friend and a good person—attacked Eleanor, coming pretty damned close to raping her, had been a nightmare he would never wish on her or any other woman.
He hated that he wasn’t there to stop it. Hated it had been because of him that it happened. But he’d never once blamed her for any of it.
He moved to the bed and sat, then cupped her face, bringing his eyes to hers. “I know you’re smart enough to know what Jason did wasn’t your fault.”
Her eyes flashed. “I know that.”
“Then why would you think my dad kicking me out was your fault? Eleanor, my dad and I were fighting all the time and me being in trouble was nothing new.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. When we were dating, you had stayed out of trouble. You guys were getting along better.”
He snorted. “I was staying out of trouble, but he and I weren’t getting along. And yeah, that last week there before graduation was bad, but I’d long ago pushed him to the brink of patience with me.”
He and his dad had never gotten along. His dad had been ready to kick him out for a long time. When Jason assaulted Eleanor, Heath had been outside with friends doing keg stands. The only thing that saved her from rape was the police raiding the party at that moment.
Heath’s friends had all run when the cops arrived, but Heath knew Eleanor had gone upstairs to fix her hair. He wasn’t going to run off and leave her just to avoid getting into trouble with his dad. So he’d gone looking for her and the police had caught him, but that was on him, not on her. None of it had been on her.
“Nori, I don’t blame you at all for hiding that night. Hell—” it was his turn to look away now— “I should have been there with you instead of partying downstairs. I should have gone with you that night. I should have seen that Jason was a piece of shit so pissed off you were taking my attention away from the team and the guys. That he was the kind of guy that would stoop to rape to break us apart.”
She was shaking her head. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He leaned closer, touching his forehead to hers and bringing his hand to her cheek. He wanted to be closer, but this was as good as it was going to get right now. “None of that was your fault either. It was Jason’s fault. He was the one who was wrong here. And as for my dad kicking me out of the house, it wasn’t a bad thing.”
Eleanor hadn’t answered his calls or come to the door when he went to her house after that night and he’d had no idea why. She wouldn’t see him. But a few days later, he’d finally gotten it out of one of the other guys what Jason had done. And he’d lost it. He’d never been in such a blind rage before.
When he put Jason in the hospital, the school suspended Heath. Only his dad’s money had kept it a suspension instead of expulsion. He was allowed to graduate from high school, but not allowed to walk with the class and his dad had told him he wasn’t paying another penny for Heath.
That had included college. So he’d joined the Army. And that was the best thing to happen to him.
Well, the best thing if he didn’t count Eleanor. She’d been, hands down, the best part of his life. It had all gone to hell and ended in the worst way possible, but for those months they’d been together, it was perfection.
He couldn’t believe she’d been thinking there was anything she needed to apologize for. “Joining the Army was the right thing for me. Much better than college would have been.”
She was watching him intently. “You’ve made it really far. I’m proud of you, Heath.”
Jesus Christ, if that didn’t do all kinds of things in his chest. He knew he was heading into the very dangerous territory of wanting more with Nori than just a shared past. A whole lot more.
Chapter 12
“No.” Eleanor didn’t even hesitate in her response.
Heath pushed the Abaya and Hijab at Eleanor again, this time adding a growl. She needed to wear the loose-fitting dress and head covering so he could disguise her more easily as they left the hotel.
He’d let her have her early morning meeting with her team but now he needed to separate her from the group so anyone intending to harm her wouldn’t realize she wasn’t in the main caravan heading to the compound.
“Yes, Eleanor. I need you covered while I get you to the negotiations.”
She crossed her arms and leveled him with a look. “Absolutely not. Demir and his people are Arab Christians, not Muslims. If I show up to the negotiations dressed in that, I look like I don’t know who I’m dealing with and what I’m doing. I’ll look like an amateur who assumes because I’m in a Middle Eastern country, I’m expected to wear that by default. I won’t weaken myself at the start of this by going in there like that.”
He growled again. Damn, he was really making a habit of that. “I don’t care if you take it off when we make it to the compound, but you need to put it on now.”
“Not happening.”
He looked at her. She had her hair pulled back in a tight knot at the nape of her neck and wore trim khaki pants and a white buttoned-down shirt with a leather belt. She had on ankle boots that, thankfully, weren’t for fashion. They were laced up and functional, ready for her to run if she needed to. He loved her for all of that.
But what he didn’t love was that she wouldn’t let him do his job.
He moved in close, towering over her and not caring one damned bit that he was using his size to intimidate her. If it meant keeping her safe, he’d do it. “When we step foot onto that compound, you can be in charge—” at least so far as the negotiations were concerned, he added to himself, “but my job is to get you there safely. If I tell you to put this on, you’ll put it on. If I tell you to get down, you’ll get down. If I tell you to run, you’ll run. Got it? That’s the way this works, Eleanor.”
Her eyes said no. They were, in fact, impressively murderous at the moment. “I’ll wear it out of the hotel and halfway to the compound, but then it’s coming off. I won’t have any of Demir’s people see me wearing the wrong damned clothes.”
He slid his jaw back and forth, trying to crack the tension he felt. “Fine.”
He shoved the dark fabric at her and stepped back, watching as she donned the Abaya and expertly wrapped the Hijab like she’d done it dozens of times before.
She caught him looking as she tucked it into place. “I’ve worn them before. It’s not the clothes I object to, Heath. And I respect you have to do your job, but I have to do mine. That means walking into this negotiation from a place of strength. Making sure Demir respects me. If I look like I don’t know what I’m doing, we might as well go home right now.”
He wanted to take her home. He’d been all in favor of letting her complete this mission and then getting her home safely, b
ut today, he was all about getting her out of here. If it were up to him, he’d scoop her up and run like hell for home.
And then what? Then he’d never see her again. She’d go her way and he’d go his and she’d be out of his life again.
He rubbed at his chest. The thought gave him heartburn. At least, he’d tell himself that’s what it was. Because anything else, like the fact he was falling for this woman, was too fucking much for him to handle right now.
A knock on the door told them it was time. They’d be moving her down to a car without her people and leaving ahead of the others. He and Zip were going with her. The others would take her people over.
Heath opened the door and he and Zip ushered Eleanor out and into the stairwell where Merlin and Duff had cleared the way and were standing sentry.
They moved with practiced precision and were down in the parking garage in minutes and then Zip was behind the wheel and Eleanor and Heath were in the back as they pulled out.
Heath welcomed the steely calm that came over him when he was in his element. He’d spent the night worrying about this move, worrying that he couldn’t keep Eleanor safe. But now that they were under way, training and instinct took over as he scanned the area around them as they moved out into traffic.
Eleanor turned in her seat, looking behind them. “Where is my team? Where are the others?”
“Not coming,” Heath said, not moving his eyes to her. “They’ll come in half an hour with the rest of my team.”
“What?”
He had expected the anger in her tone. He knew without asking that she’d disapprove of being split from her team. Still, no one was gunning for her team.
“Eleanor, our job is to keep you safe. This is how we make sure that happens.”
