He brought you here against your will, remember? So what if he looks like a sexy pirate, or if his silky black hair begged her to run her fingers through it.
He’s the bad guy.
Oh my God, stop staring at him and say something.
King got to his feet, his full towering height impossibly intimidating. Why did she have to talk? Why did she have to say something? He was the one who wanted to talk in the first place.
He dragged his hand down his beard, and she suddenly wondered if he was searching for the right thing to say. Had he realized he might’ve made a mistake?
She sure as heck wasn’t going to find out if someone didn’t break the silence. She tried to read his expression, but found nothing but that same burning intensity. Was he mad? Frustrated?
“You wanted to talk?” There, she sounded firm. Like an adult. An adult female struggling with Stockholm syndrome. Being attracted to your captor was psychology 101.
“I did,” he finally said.
“And?”
“And what?”
“You wanted to talk about what exactly?” Frustrated, she crossed her arms over her chest.
King’s gaze dropped to her chest and he rubbed his beard again. Laura glanced down, saw she’d pushed her already oversized boobs higher and immediately dropped her hands to her sides, feeling the heat rise up her cheeks.
This had been a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. There was nowhere for her to stand or turn and not feel half naked. How had she convinced herself that he wouldn’t notice?
Especially when she shoved her breasts up practically begging him to stare at them.
She curled her fingernails into her palms, clenching her jaw. He was still staring, to the point of being rude. That pissed her off. Her nipples beaded, making him stare harder and that pissed her off even more. “You’re going to tell me about why you felt it necessary to kidnap me and blow up my house.”
That had his gaze snapping back at her face, but she wasn’t sure if it was any better. The intensity she’d detected earlier was nothing compared to the burning now.
“What took so long?” He leaned against the thick wooden bedpost beside him.
What took so long? She’d been trying to work up the courage to face him again, number one. And number two, he hadn’t exactly provided her with adequate clothing to wear. She shrugged, “I like to take long showers.”
King crossed his arms, drawing her attention once more to his muscles. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes,” she answered automatically.
“Good,” he tilted his head toward the bed. “Want to sit?”
Laura swallowed. There was no way she was going anywhere close to that bed especially with him on it. “I’ll stand, thanks.”
“You can sit there.” He pointed to the low bench he’d just abandoned, pushed up against the bed.
As if that were any better. The wicked reel of scenarios flashed through her mind all of them involving him and her in compromising positions. “I’m good.” No way in hell was she going to trust herself right now.
His gaze raked her, and her already hard nipples tightened painfully. Her fisted hands tightened in response, and she checked the urge to cross her arms again, knowing that would only draw more attention.
King shoved off from the bedpost, and paced away from her. As soon as his back was turned she sucked in a deep breath.
He stopped a few feet away, dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his temples. His shoulders drooped, and she realized he had to be as exhausted as she was. She took a timid step forward, her naturally nurturing self seeking to make this a little easier on them both. “King—”
“I don’t think I can talk to you like this,” he said softly, cutting her off.
She stopped mid stride. “What do you mean?”
He gestured blindly over her shoulder, refusing to face her. “Can’t you put on a shirt or something?”
The small wave of heat creeping up her chest turned into a full-blown tsunami. She could feel herself flushing all the way from her roots to her toes. “No, I can’t,” she bit out through clenched teeth. “This is the only clothes you’ve provided.”
King groaned as if in pain and strode back across the room, crossing in front of her without even glancing her way. He went to open a heavy wooden door in the far wall and a second later came out holding up a very large black T-shirt. He tossed it her way. “Put this on.”
She let it pool at her feet, not even attempting to pick it up. “Why don’t you put it on?”
He’d been walking around shirtless all day. And he had a choice—she hadn’t.
Apparently, he had not wanted to hear that. He squared off with her, and she stood her ground. Her embarrassment was gone, in its place slow simmering anger. He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand, stopping him before he could utter a sound. “Look, I’m tired. You’re tired. You owe me an explanation, it doesn’t matter if I’m sitting or standing or what I’m wearing, just tell me and I’ll go.”
His lips pressed into a firm line. “Your brother has lost control. He needs to be brought in before he hurts someone.”
“My brother’s fine, you are the only one around here not in control,” she countered.
“You think that, because he’s your brother, but you don’t know what he’s been through. He’s not the same, Laura. They changed him.” His words got quieter, trailing off at the end so that she had to lean forward to hear the last bit.
“Who are they? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to tell you, but you need to know.” King walked over to the edge of the bed and dropped down resting his elbows on his knees. He stared straight ahead at the wall.
Curious, half filled with dread, she edged toward him. “Please tell me.”
“The government came to us with this new project, it was an experiment that was meant to help enhance our abilities as a unit. You should know, we were probably one of the best units in the Special Forces, but we wanted to be better.” He wasn’t looking at anyone or anything, but the haunted look on his face drew her.
King continued, “The experiment promised to make us stronger, faster and smarter than any other team. It was super-secret, beyond classified—or so we thought. It wasn’t until after we found out that our government-sanctioned experiment wasn’t exactly sanctioned.”
Forgetting her wounds earlier, Laura eased herself down on the mattress sitting beside him, close enough to feel the heat from his body without touching. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is our commander betrayed us. He was trying to create some kind of super soldier with an experiment privately funded by terrorist organizations. The government had nothing to do with it. And the serum they used had side effects.”
King turned his head then, staring at her, his face empty.
A tightness crept across her chest. “Side effects?”
Horrible images that could never be real flashed through her mind.
“We were dumb, and blindly trusting.”
“What happened?”
He clenched his jaw and turned away from her. “First we thought it was awesome. They gave us the medicine, we took it and started testing our strength, our abilities. The enhancements were amazing. Beyond normal. After a while we started getting side effects. Migraines. Blackouts. Nosebleeds. And some of us started to question it. They just pushed us harder. Your brother—Dawson—they pushed him hardest.”
Laura sat up straight, the tendrils of tightness around her chest squeezing. “What did they do to him?” And then a thought struck her. “They told me he was dead. That he was killed in action.”
“We thought he was dead. They’d overdosed him with the drugs they were giving us. They were trying to see how much we could take. One of our team saw him die, or thought he did. We managed to escape after that, we ran and have been hiding ever since. We were searching for the people who did this to us, searching to bring justice for our team a
nd for your brother.” The veins on King’s arms popped.
“Then John didn’t die,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No, he didn’t. We didn’t know until several months ago when he crashed an FBI raid we were assisting on. He attacked us.” King looked straight at her hand. “He attacked me.”
Laura shook her head in denial. Her brother would never attack his own team—he’d given his life for his country. He’d been a Boy Scout his whole life, an honors graduate, a stand out soldier. “You have to be mistaken. It wasn’t John, he’s never been violent. He goes out of his way to avoid violence.”
“Believe me, it was him.” Kings tone turned dark.
John had showed back up on her doorstep all those months ago, quiet, but not once had she seen him have an outburst of anger or rage. Sure, he was different and he used to be more serious. Every movement had been careful and measured, but she’d always thought he was just being cautious around Faith. He’d come and gone, telling her he couldn’t stay, that he was still on contract with the military. She’d accepted his excuse because he’d always had that with the Special Forces, he’d be home one day and deploy the next. She’d been so overjoyed to discover he wasn’t dead she hadn’t questioned anything. Should she have?
No. He was her brother and she knew her brother. She loved him. “You’re wrong. He’s been staying with me for months and I haven’t once seen him act out of control in any way, if anything, he’s even more measured than he used to be.”
“And you were with him every day? All day?” King questioned
“Well, not every day, he still had to work. So did I. But we were with him enough.” She felt the need to defend her right rising. “He took her to play in the park every week, brought her doughnuts and ice cream, read her bedtime stories. An out-of-control man couldn’t have functioned like that.” She’d seen enough out-of-control people in her job as a social worker to know that. People on the verge of a breakdown weren’t calm and collected, they fidgeted. They jumped like nervous cats. Had outbursts and yelled. Threw things. John had done none of that.
“And who is he working for? Did he tell you that?”
Her eyebrows drew together. “John never tells me anything about his missions. He can’t.”
“That’s because he doesn’t work for the government anymore. He’s working for the man who betrayed us,” King said darkly.
“He would never betray his country or his team.”
“Maybe before the experiment, but after—Laura, you have to understand. He’s not the same John you knew. He changed.” King grabbed her hand into his. A bolt of electricity raced up her arm. In that instant, she was aware of every single callous, every bit of heat in his palm.
He continued, “They changed him.”
Trembling, she drew her hand back to her lap, afraid of her reaction to him. “It’s not true.”
“It is,” he repeated. “You can ask any of the men here on the team. They’ll tell you the same thing. We all had to fight our way back to normal, but Dawson never did.”
She shook her head, biting her lip. “You’re wrong. You have to be. John dedicated his life to saving others. He wouldn’t throw it all away. Ever.”
She knew he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his tenuous relationship with his daughter.
“You were there this morning,” King said. “He triggered an explosion in your house. Did you even know that was there?”
His question brought her up short. No, she hadn’t known anything about the bomb, but she didn’t want to admit that to King. “So?” she hedged.
“He was willing to destroy your house and risk yours and Faith’s lives in that explosion. Is that not even a little bit unhinged?”
“If what you’re saying is true about the lab and the experiments, he probably put it there to protect us in case they came after us.” That sounded more like the John she knew.
“He put it there to cover his tracks and erase any evidence of himself. He’s on the run, dangerous. Why can’t you see that?”
“Because I know him.” Laura slammed her fist onto the mattress between them and jumped to her feet. Before she could start walking, he shackled her wrist and that same bolt of awareness was there.
She tried to yank away but he wouldn’t let her, his grip firm but gentle. “You’re blinded by your love for your brother.”
Laura tried again to jerk her hand away and failed miserably. Fighting against his strength was like trying to walk through steel. Dammit, she was way too aware of his touch. What was wrong with her?
“The only one blind here as you,” she bit out.
Chapter 11
Her words gut punched him. She’d mocked him. Openly and aggressively. He slowly got to his feet, not letting go of her arm.
“I’m—I’m—sorry,” she stammered out.
Any thoughts he’d had of sparing her feelings or trying to convince her with a logical explanation vanished. King bent at the waist, putting his face only inches from hers. “I’m blind because your brother shot me in the head at point blank range.” Carefully, he drew her closer. He pointed at the patch covering where his eye used to be. “He tried to kill me but didn’t succeed, so now I have this. And yes, I saw him. I saw Dawson stand less than five feet away and fire his gun straight at me. I saw the murder in his eyes.”
“No,” she whispered.
King kept going as if she hadn’t even spoken, his rage burning through him. “And if I have to keep you under lock and key here to protect you from yourself until I find the bastard, I will.”
Laura gasped and tears pooled in her eyes turning them bright emerald green. Her lips trembled and for a moment he thought she’d cry. Resolutely she firmed up her face and stood her ground. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to your accusations anymore.”
She spun away and this time he let her go. Listening as she slammed through her bedroom and then the bathroom, the thick walls doing nothing to muffle his enhanced hearing. Although when she started sobbing, he wished he was normal.
Each and every sob took a pick-ax to his bravado, chipping away at his anger.
He shouldn’t have over reacted like that. Laura was delicate. A female who loved her family. She was just trying to hold on to that, nothing more, and he was the monster who insisted on villainizing her only brother.
No matter how much hate he had for Dawson, Laura deserved none of the truck load of shit he’d unloaded into her lap. He’d hoped to be calm, reasonable. To present the facts so that she would see it his way, but she hadn’t reacted logically, she’d reacted with emotion. Like a mama bear protecting her cub. Dawson was her family and King was threatening her family.
He dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his temples to try and smooth away the oncoming migraine that today's stress had seemed to trigger. Another one of those fun side effects from serum. The excruciating migraines. He dealt with most, but sometimes they laid him out flat for two days before he was functional again.
Her sobs continued to pour through the walls, pounding his conscience and tugging at his heart. He’d always been a sucker for a woman in need, but this was next level. Fuck you’re an asshole.
He had to fix this mess he’d inadvertently created; he couldn’t leave her all broken. He was miserable and from the sound of her sobs, so was she. He was man enough to admit his talk had failed completely.
King peeked inside her bedroom to see the tiny waif, Faith, huddled sound asleep on the other side of the bed. Laura's muffled sobs came from behind the shut bathroom door.
Steeling himself, he drew in a breath and pushed through the door, ignoring her gasps of outrage, and then kicked the door shut behind him, effectively trapping them together. She sat on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, her chin tucked against her knees. Silvery track marks of tears lined her cheeks. Track marks he was responsible for.
“Go away.”
“No,” King dropped to his knees in front of her.
Gently, he reached for her hand but she snatched it away as though he were poison.
“Laura,” he began, not really sure what he could say to make the situation better. Even when he’d married Trinity he hadn’t been good with tears or fights. Not that they’d had many, but the few they did have had always ended up with King realizing in the end, it had been his fault to begin with.
Just like it was his fault now. “I’m sorry.”
She jerked her head up from her knees. “What did you say?”
King sat back on his heels, feeling awkward. And he realized just how rusty he was at dealing with females. He hadn’t actually had a real conversation with one since Trinity died. And even before that with her he always felt like he had to be careful around her, she’d been so delicate, he’d always been afraid he’d somehow break her.
“I said I’m sorry.” The words clumsily tripped from his lips.
She sniffled and swiped a forearm across her nose like a child. He leaned over and yanked out two Kleenexes from the box on the counter and passed them to her. She dabbed her nose with one and dried her eyes and cheeks with the other, every now and then a soft sniffle escaped her.
After a good minute, he felt like he’d given her enough time to process his apology yet she still didn’t speak. The awkward silence urged him to fill it. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you. It isn’t your fault and I know you don’t want to be here.”
She dropped her gaze to the floor, and reached down to twirl one of the thick strands on the shag rug beneath her. “I’m sorry, too.”
“What for?” He hadn’t expected her to apologize; he honestly didn’t know why she would.
Still hiding her eyes from him she said, “For what I said. About being blind. I was trying to hurt you.”
He processed her admission. “Because I hurt you.”
Mayhem’s King: Operation Mayhem Page 8