“I don’t understand you at all,” she complained.
He shook his head. “I guess we’re even, then. I sure as hell don’t understand you.”
She stared at him mutely, her breathing agitated and refusing all efforts to slow and deepen. She was too aware of the fact that she was lying on his bed, wearing next to nothing, and that he’d had his hands all over her. Tender hands, soft touches, gentle concern—what she could only think of as fierce protectiveness coming out at the idea that she’d been hurt.
“What else did he do to you?” Alex asked one more time.
Geri opened her mouth to tell him—to lie—and found herself nearly choking on the words. She didn’t like this man, she told herself. She didn’t know him. He could probably be ten different men, just like she could be ten different women, and none of this meant anything. So why did she feel so lousy about lying to him? She lied nearly every day of her life. It was as easy as breathing, and so far it had kept her alive. It was not a bad thing.
“Alex,” she replied wearily, “what’s the point?”
“The point?” He swore.
She actually flinched.
“What about the next time?” he asked. “When he grabs you again? When he hits you? What if he doesn’t let go that time? What if you can’t get away?”
She thought about her own life, not the pretend one. Somehow with him, she couldn’t stick to the role. Everything was about her. The real her.
Next time? If she couldn’t get away? Then she’d die. If she didn’t get out of this mess with him, she’d die, and if this case didn’t kill her, the next one might She thought she’d dealt with that long ago, accepted it. But maybe she hadn’t. Maybe the shooting had taught her that. Or seeing Dan in the wheelchair. Maybe she understood the price, as she never had before. Because of him—Alex Hathaway. The man standing in front of her? The one so concerned about something as mundane as a few fading bruises on her body?
How could he create something as evil and destructive as the next generation of plastic explosives, then go ballistic over a few bruises on her ribs?
“Geri?” he prompted, and she realized she was lost. Lost in him, in the terrible, conflicting feelings she had for him.
“I don’t want to talk about this with you,” she said. “There’s no point.”
It was all a lie, after all. Everything she told him would be a lie.
“Are you going back to him?” he asked, ignoring her and going right on, trying to learn what he wanted to know.
“Not unless he finds me and drags me back,” she said. If that was what he wanted to hear, she’d tell him. She’d do anything to get him away from her right now. But he didn’t go away. The damned man didn’t go away. He put his hand to her side, over the bruise he’d uncovered moments before, his thumb sliding back and forth over her rib cage, almost reverently.
She sucked in a breath, surprised by the warmth of his hand soaking into her skin. It was just his hand, she thought. Over that bruise. As if he could take it away, erase it clean. As if he cared. In all her life, she would swear that no one had ever touched her with such genuine concern.
“It wasn’t the first time, was it?” he asked, as if it hurt him to think of her being hurt that way.
She shook her head back and forth, feeling worse with every lie she told.
He shook his head. “How could you let someone hurt you like that? How could you let him do it again and again?”
“Alex.” Dammit.
He just didn’t understand. She’d been hurt so many times. Her whole life, if something had hurt her, it just didn’t matter. It was simply the way things were. She’d accepted that, hadn’t she? So why couldn’t he? Why couldn’t he leave it alone?
Something twisted loose inside her; the awful fatigue that seemed to have seeped into her bones was now crying to get out. Frustration. Uncertainty. Fear. Anger. A flood tide of emotions he seemed singularly capable of drawing out of her in vivid detail. She was so angry at him for refusing to be what she expected, for making her doubt what her own eyes told her—that he was Alex Hathaway—and that she was going to absolutely destroy him.
She thought about the order that might come once they had his formula. To terminate him. Could she do it, she wondered? A few hours ago, she’d been tempted to do it all on her own. For months, she’d dreamed about exacting revenge on him, and now she wasn’t sure if she could, even if ordered to do so. She would look at his face and see him like this, touching her so tenderly, outraged that anyone dared hurt her.
No one took care of her. Not ever.
“Oh, baby. Don’t,” he whispered.
His face softened even more, and he looked at her the way he’d looked at his nieces in those photographs that disturbed her so very much—tenderly, sweetly, almost lovingly. His hand cupped the side of her face for a moment, and it was only when he brushed his thumb across her cheek and she felt a trail of moisture that Geri realized she was crying.
She took a breath—a great, straining grab for air where there was none. Crying was such a foreign thing to her, and she’d done more of it in the last three and a half months than she had in the nearly thirty years she’d been alive.
Dammit, she couldn’t cry now. Not in front of him. Not over him.
“I hate this,” she said. “I hate to cry.”
But despite her resolve to stop, her tears merely fell faster. From somewhere deep inside her, she felt the emotions she’d held in check for years shaking loose, flooding up inside her, choking her, scaring her.
“It’s all right,” Alex said as he pulled her into his arms.
She sat there stiffly in his embrace, bewildered and confused and so very angry, because she liked it here, right here in his arms. It was as if her traitorous body had decided to rebel against the years in which she’d ignored the part of her that was simply a woman and to take its revenge right now with the most unlikely of men.
Groaning, she wondered if this was what it felt like when someone cracked under pressure. They used to joke about it in training, in those times when they were figuring out if they could cut it, either in the military or in the agency. Cracked. Cracked up. Lost it. Freaked out. Gone AWOL. Gone off the deep end.
That was how she felt—as if someone had thrown her into the deep end, and she was sinking fast. She didn’t even recognize herself. If she could have peeled off her skin, stepped out of her traitorous body and left it behind, she would have, with an open invitation for Alex Connor to do anything he wanted with her, to get it over with and be done with it. He could have sex with her. He could hold her and stroke her back and pretend to care about her, for reasons she’d never understand, and then it would be over. Then she could deal with him, rationally, calmly, competently, like the agent she was supposed to be.
If only she could do that... Geri fought unsuccessfully for air. She was smothering, crying harder. “I can’t do this.”
Alex pulled back, cocked his head to the side, and then smiled a bit. “Baby, I don’t think you have a choice tonight.”
He tucked her head against his chest, so solid and strong. His arms locked around her, and she had the insane sensation that here in his arms, no one could get to her. No one could hurt her.
“I never cry,” she told him, simply unable to give in to it.
“All women cry,” he countered, and again she sensed that hint of a smile on his lips—an indulgent, all-knowing smile.
“I guess you know all about us,” she said between her tears.
“With three sisters, I had no choice but to figure out women. It was pure self-preservation on my part.”
“Three?” she asked. Alex Hathaway had three sisters.
He nodded.
“Were you close?” she asked, because it was much easier to talk about anything except the fact that she was falling apart, right here in his bed, with his arms tightly around her. She was absolutely losing it.
“Not always,” he said. “Not as close as I would
have liked. It’s not...something that comes easy to any of us, not with the way I grew up.”
His mother, he meant. His mother died when he was very young, and his family life had been a bit chaotic after that, as Geri’s had been.
“I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to have sisters,” Geri said wistfully.
“You don’t have any?”
“No.”
“No brothers?”
“No. Just me and the General.”
“The General?”
Another slip. Dammit.
“My father,” she explained, then knew what she had to do. “My mother died when I was very young, and he never married again. So it was just the two of us.”
“Mine, too,” he said, stroking his hands across her back. “My mother, I mean. She died so young, I don’t have any memory of her.”
Of course not. He’d been two.
Geri sat there, huddled against him, trembling and crying like some kind of weak, idiotic female—a woman she’d never been before, had never even remotely resembled. He’d done this to her, she thought. He’d torn her life apart, and now he was going to kill her with kindness, smother her with warmth and concern.
“Oh, damn,” she cried, and he only held her tighter.
She’d never been like this, she wanted to tell him. She’d never needed anyone like this. Until him. Until he’d ruined it all, just like he was ruining everything now.
“Please don’t be nice to me,” she said ridiculously.
“What do you want me to be, Geri?” he asked indulgently.
“Nothing,” she replied. “I don’t want you to be anything at all to me.”
She didn’t want him anywhere near her, didn’t even want to be on the same planet as him. Because he was so very dangerous. Even more dangerous than herself, because he made her want to believe in him—in all the lies, all the tenderness. Even knowing what she did about him, she wanted to believe.
“Just go away,” Geri said miserably, weakly. She absolutely abhorred weakness, especially in herself. She could have sworn the General had drummed every ounce of it out of her, and yet here it came, charging to the surface when she could least afford it. All she had to do was hate him, she thought. Alex. Hate. Even as she sat here with her face buried against his chest, shaking so hard she could scarcely breathe, her tears streaming down now, she was trying to convince herself. Just hate him.
“Why don’t you just let me hold you until the worst of this is over,” Alex said. “And then I’ll go. I’ll do anything you want, Geri, and if you want me to leave you alone then, I will. But don’t ask me to let you go right now. I don’t think I could.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head back and forth when he was trying to hold her still.
“Make me,” he said. “Make me understand.”
“I’m always alone,” she said, anger shooting through her words. “And I’m just fine that way. It’s better that way.”
“‘Better’?” He finally backed away, letting her go, seeing those awful tears running down her face. “How is it better?”
“Safer,” she replied.
She’d done it again—forgotten all about the woman she was supposed to be, the story she was supposed to tell. She’d forgotten all the lies. This was all about her—pain—fully, honestly about her. And he hated it. He hated the way she lived. She could see it in his face.
“How long have you believed that?” he asked. “How long have you lived it?”
“Always,” she said.
Alex just shook his head. “You can’t do this forever, Geri. I know you think you can. I know you think you’re better off this way, because I used to be a lot like you. But things happen. You’re going to need somebody someday. You’ll regret what you’ve done to push everybody away. You’ll find yourself alone, and it’s no longer by choice. It’s just the way your life is, and you might not be able to change it.”
“I don’t want to change,” she claimed.
He reached out with a finger, tracing the path of one wretched tear. “And what you’re doing is really working for you? So well that you can’t stand to give it up?”
No, it wasn’t working at all. Not anymore. Because of him.
“Stop it,” she said. “God, just stop.”
With a groan, he stood then, turned his back to her and ran a hand through his hair. Geri could almost breathe again, now that he wasn’t so close. Of course, she was exhausted from the battle it had taken to push him away, and for the life of her, she couldn’t stop crying. Some traitorous part of her longed to have him close again, and she had never been a foolish woman or a stupid one. She collapsed against the mattress, crying again even as she fought to hold it inside, to make it stop.
“God, Geri,” Alex said.
She felt the bed give under his weight, felt him reach out and stroke her hair, her back. It wasn’t long before he was lying beside her, before he’d taken her into his arms once again. She was shaking uncontrollably, and he whispered silly reassurances into her ear that he couldn’t possibly believe and she was much too smart to listen to. But she was utterly exhausted. And she liked the sound of his voice—smooth and deep and almost hypnotic.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he’d hypnotized her, mesmerized her, simply made her into someone else altogether. How dared he? she thought, even as she lay there utterly defenseless in his arms, hating him the whole time. He was Alex Hathaway. This was all his fault.
How dared he be so nice to her, when it was all his fault?
Chapter 4
Alex held her for a long, long time. Until the tears stopped falling and the trembling ceased, until her body warmed to his and she was utterly relaxed against him, utterly still.
She was asleep, more trusting than any sane woman had a right to be in this day and age, and he wanted to shake her awake and tell her all about it—that she had no business trusting him, that she damned well shouldn’t take off from a seedy bar with a total tranger, come home with him and then curl up in his bed fast asleep without knowing who in the hell he was or what he might do to her.
Women. he thought, even as he lay there flat on his back with her curled so trustingly against his side. They did stupid things. Women in all sorts of dire situations found him and expected him to make it all better—something he usually tried to do.
Not this time, he told himself.
It would be too dangerous for her and for him. It would be irresponsible of him to let her stay here a moment longer than necessary. Even if she was totally alone in the world and claimed to like it that way, even if she was lonely as hell and desperately needed someone and couldn’t admit it, even to herself.
She didn’t need him. Not now.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered as she shifted in her sleep and one small foot insinuated itself between his ankles, bringing the entire length of her right leg into contact with his.
She didn’t even stir when he jumped up out of bed, but just collapsed into the space he’d occupied and slept on. He paced the tiny room, never finding it more confining than he did right then, never hating his predicament more.
He couldn’t afford to trust anyone except himself. It was the only way he was going to stay alive. Yet he wanted to trust her, to help her—ever since he’d seen the bruises, the haunted look in her eyes. She’d been desperately afraid of him when he’d turned her over and pushed her shirt out of the way, and he hadn’t meant to scare her. He just had to see, to know.
Someone had hurt her—badly and repeatedly, from what she’d said.
Even now, a near-murderous rage came over him at the sight of those bruises on her soft, smooth flesh. He turned back to her now, looked at how little space she took in his bed. She was so petite, so vulnerable. It would be so easy for a man to hurt her.
How could she have let him? How could she stay with a man like that? Alex simply didn’t understand. As chaotic as his childhood had been, no one had ever hit him or his sisters.
He’d never felt vulnerable physically until very, very recently, and he didn’t like it one bit. He hated it even more for Geri.
Alex went to the bed, knelt beside it, resting his forearms on the mattress, his chin on one of his fists. She was facing him, lying on her side, and he could see the faint bruiselike crescents under her eyes now. How many sleepless nights had there been for her, he wondered? How many nights had she spent afraid? And what in the world was he going to do with her?
He’d like nothing better than to crawl back into that bed and spend the night with her draped all over him. He’d like to do even more than that, if she’d let him, but he doubted she would. He’d scared her half to death earlier, every time he’d touched her.
Damn.
“Who are you?” he said.
He couldn’t afford to ignore that key question. Why had she come here? Why would any woman ever be so trusting as to come here to the middle of nowhere with a total stranger?
Sheer exhaustion? Looking at her sleeping so deeply, he could almost accept that. That she would have gone anywhere, with anyone, to get away from whoever had done this to her. Which made her exactly what she seemed—a woman who’d been hurt and was in trouble, a woman who needed him.
And if she wasn’t? If everything she’d told him was a lie and this was some offbeat plan to smoke him out? To get someone inside this cabin, maybe inside his head, and ruin everything he’d worked so hard to save these past few months? Then what?
Alex shook his head and frowned. No surprises there.
He’d be dead.
About twenty minutes later, he summoned up enough common sense to search her bag. He pawed through pretty little lace panties that made him hard just looking at them, more short skirts—thankfully none of them leather—and crop tops. No bras anywhere. He was so hoping for a bra. Not so he could paw through them, but so she could wear one the next day and save him from having to look at her breasts pushing against another bit of cotton, swaying gently as she walked.
Spies, Lies and Lovers Page 5