Hoyt closed down, a trick he must have learned in the military, because her brothers pulled the same thing all the time. She used to be able to read their expressions like an open book, but now they all shut down cold whenever they didn’t want her to know what they were thinking. But that didn’t matter, because Hayden was pissed off enough for the whole entire team to have some of her rage.
“I was coming to get you, to protect you.”
“If you were so hell-bent on protecting me, why didn’t you get out of the car and come talk to me.”
Her heart fluttered out of control, but it wasn’t from desire this time. Rage was fueling this adrenaline surge.
“It doesn’t matter, I saw you with him and the blond guy. It’s obvious you were having a good time.”
Hayden wanted to rip her hair out. Hoyt was acting like a jealous boyfriend, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been trying to get over him, at long last, because she’d given up hope.
Her heart stalled a full ten seconds. Jealous boyfriends cared about their girlfriends. Hayden tucked that little tell into her arsenal. “So you do go around spying on me and my boyfriends?”
Hoyt stiffened even more, so much she was sure he’d snap in half if she reached out and thumped him.
Satisfaction curled her spine back into her seat and she twined her fingers together over her stomach. Playing on his jealousy was downright deviant. It was dirty. And maybe it was also the nudge he needed to realize he loved her and didn’t want to lose her.
“Sorry you had to see that. So, since you’re stalking Malik, you must be stalking Chance too.”
Hoyt craned his head in her direction, slow and methodical. “That’s frat boy’s name? Chance?”
“Yes, it is. Looks like you’ll get to meet him today too. He’s in my next class.” And she’d make sure to sit next to him this time instead of across the room.
Hoyt gave her a strange look she couldn’t even begin to fathom and then nodded.
What the hell was that? “If you suspect Malik, you might as well suspect Chance. There’s about as good of a likelihood that he’s secretly guilty.”
21
Hoyt sat there for the rest of the class, trying to ignore the vice of rage that crushed his chest every time he thought about Hayden with Chance. The very idea of her being with Malik was off-topic. Period.
He narrowed his focus on Malik, learning the way he moved. Something about him wasn’t right. Something had rattled him. The way he paced back-and-forth, yeah he’d probably rattled the fucker’s cage last night when he took out his two buddies.
Hayden stared forward in stony silence. Which was all good, except he was being blasted with a serious wave of aggravation from her.
Something inside him wanted to soothe it.
He looked at his watch. Class had to be over soon. It had only been thirty minutes. Shit, he’d never been to college, but he knew enough to know classes were longer than thirty minutes.
His phone buzzed with a message from Hunter. ETA 15 minutes. Bringing the whole crew to grab this guy for questioning. You got my sister?
Hoyt typed out a quick response. Good, I’ll lead him out. And yes I have Hayden.
He shoved his phone back into his pocket but kept his Beretta close.
Hunter’s first text hadn’t been so nice. Remember your promise, asshole. He’d been referring to the promise Hoyt had made him to stay away from Hayden of course. And, well, he wasn’t wrong. The way he’d lost his shit with her earlier today at Hank’s was proof positive he wasn’t ready for a relationship.
“That’s it for today, class. Sorry, I didn’t have enough time to prepare. We’ll meet at the regular time next week and start a regular schedule once I’ve had more time to review.” Malik quickly gathered his briefcase and strode from the room.
What the fuck? Hoyt shoved to his feet.
Hayden stared at him and his skin pricked with awareness. “Come on,” he growled.
Hayden crossed her arms and stared up at him with a mulish tilt to her chin. “No.”
Malik was getting away.
“This isn’t a joke. People’s lives are at risk.” Hoyt leaned down to issue the harsh whisper. Even so, he could practically feel the students’ scrutiny.
“I agree. But I can’t let you hurt him.”
Hoyt pulled on every single ounce of willpower he possessed and squatted next to her chair. The too skinny rows squeezed his shoulders, trapping him.
“I’m not a monster. I’m not going to hurt him, but I am going to detain him and question him. Just like I would detain and question any suspect.”
She faced him. “You promise?”
Yeah, he could promise her that. He wasn’t the interrogator. He just bagged ‘em, tagged ‘em and took them to headquarters. What they did with them after that was none of his concern. If the guy was as innocent as she thought, he wouldn’t have a problem. “All I do is take them in.”
“Okay.” She lifted her bag and Hoyt led the way to the staircase. They had to go down and out the front door to track Malik, which meant he’d have to wind his way through the congested bottle-neck of students standing in line to get out of the room.
He’d have to get up close and personal. Fuck.
“We can go out the back and circle around to the next hallway. I’ll take you to his office.”
Hoyt nodded and stepped back, allowing Hayden to take the lead. She went up and out the door into an empty hall, hung a right and then another right. Took a left and climbed an L-shaped set of stairs.
They took a left at the lower landing and Hoyt followed her through the maze, fingers itching to have his gun at the ready in case worst came to worst, as it so often did in his experience, but there were too many college kids lining the halls. And if they didn’t quit looking at him like he was some freak escaped from the circus, he was going to seriously lose his shit.
He didn’t want to embarrass Hayden by walking too close to her. Someone might think they were together. He didn’t even want to associate with himself anymore. Hoyt strayed behind her, staring at her shoulder blades as they pulled closer and closer together, until they could squash a quarter between them. After they passed a second group of gawkers, she hung back and took up guard right next to him. The tilt of her beautiful stubborn chin had to be the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
And for the first time in months, Hoyt didn’t feel the walls were closing in. His chest didn’t get so tight he couldn’t breathe. And when Hayden looked up at him, when she took his hand in hers, he felt he could do anything.
He had to be insane—this couldn’t be good for either of them—but it felt so right when they were together, when she was close to him. Like he could actually handle getting close to her.
Hayden James was just as strong as her brothers. She cleared a path through the middle of the hall like a trained riot cop.
Hoyt savored her touch the entire way.
All too soon, she stopped in front of a nondescript door with no name tag. Hoyt knew he should let go of her hand, but he held it tight for a few minutes longer, savoring the way her palm fit against his.
She spoke first. “This is it.”
Hoyt nodded and tried to unravel his fingers from hers. “Okay.”
“Just be easy, okay?”
Hoyt nodded as he stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, luxuriating in the feel of her satiny skin beneath his thumb.
“Or we could get out of here. Just me and you.”
What he wouldn’t give for that. Hoyt gave himself a mental shake and untangled his fingers.
He couldn’t break his promise to Hunter. Or himself. Hoyt tried to shrug her off, but it would have been like shrugging off his own flesh. He had to learn to accept the way he felt about her and deal with the fact that he could never have her.
Of course, he’d probably be dead before that happened.
Hoyt rapped on the door harder than intended and put his hand on his gun. Five secon
ds stretched into ten and he knocked again. He glanced at Hayden.
“Malik, it’s Hayden.”
Hoyt tried the knob. Locked. He lifted his foot to kick it in, but Hayden dangled a set of keys in his face. “How about we do it the easy way?”
Hoyt let her insert the key, but he covered her hand with his. “I’m the first one in. Stay behind me. How do you have the keys anyway?”
“I was Professor Latham’s student assistant.”
Hoyt paused before he turned the key, the first inkling of doubt about Latham’s guilt edging its way into his mind. Hayden didn’t trust blindly, not after her childhood.
Regardless, he had a mission to complete and the facts would come out sooner or later. He turned the key, metal grinding through metal, and twisted the knob. The office, which couldn’t be any bigger than nine by ten feet, had enough room for a small metal desk and shelves upon shelves of books and papers all perfectly aligned. The room was neat and professional looking and empty. Fuck. Hoyt had his cell phone out and pressed to his ear in an instant. “Where are you? The suspect is gone.”
“What do you mean he’s gone? You had him.”
“No shit. But he split and he’s not in his office.”
“I’ll pull his plates, see if his vehicle is still in the parking lot. But it’ll be another seven minutes at the earliest before we get there. Find him now. And Hoyt, you better fucking watch my sister.” Hunter hung up and shoved his phone into his back pocket.
“Was that my brother?”
Hoyt nodded and headed down the hall, took a left, dodging some students hugging the walls. “Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Basically if I let anything happen to you, he’ll cut off my balls.”
Hayden marched beside him and waved a hand in the air. “I swear; you guys are so over dramatic. Hunter is all bark and no bite. If you want to know the truth, Ranger has a worse temper.”
Hoyt resisted the urge to check her for a high fever. “You must be talking about a different Hunter James.”
He’d seen Hunter seriously hurt plenty of men without flinching. Before Merc joined the team, everyone had thought Hunter was the biggest badass they’d ever seen. Now he’d been edged out by six-foot-six pack of straight muscle. But just barely.
“He might be a tad protective of me,” Hayden shrugged.
Hoyt felt his eyes get wide. Real wide. “A tad protective?”
“Okay, really protective. But I know he trusts you with his life. Otherwise you wouldn’t be on his team.”
Hoyt stopped scanning the halls and stared at her, “Just because he trusts me with his life doesn’t mean he trusts me with his baby sister. Stay close and stay behind me. I’ve got to find Malik before he leaves campus.”
“I can take you right to him.”
Hayden took the lead again. Hoyt stayed right behind her, careful to keep enough distance that even if his hands overrode his brain and reached for her, he couldn’t. He’d been so distracted by her, he’d let their main lead slip through his fingers.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Tracking and sniping were the two things he was still good at. Check that—apparently he wasn’t so hot at tracking anymore. He’d lost a college graduate in under a minute. Not a good number to add to his track record.
“Can we move a little faster?” Hoyt tried to keep the command out of his voice, but he could tell he’d failed from the way she stiffened.
Hayden picked up the pace from a casual stroll to a power walk, and Hoyt’s combat boots pounded on the tile floor as he followed fast behind her.
Right turn, left turn, left turn, right turn. Christ. “Is this one of those maze experiments or something?”
Hayden tossed a throwaway smile over her shoulder. “I thought so at first. Actually it turns out this building had a huge addition, which made it this big maze of hallways. There are actually stories of students getting lost. Pretty funny when you consider the fact it’s a psychology building.”
“They’re probably videoing us now and recording our movements for their experiment.” Hoyt muttered under his breath.
They rounded another corner into a long straight stretch, the end narrowing into the distance. No windows. No exits. Just concrete cinder blocks and puke green tiles. The florescent light buzzed and snapped overhead, and Hoyt ducked on reflex.
He shrugged his shoulders as a familiar cold tightness snaked around his chest. He didn’t have time to be claustrophobic and he sure as shit didn’t have time for a sissy ass panic attack.
Hayden kept moving down the long hall stopping at the second to last door on the right. “This is our lab. We tend to eat and sleep here. We’d never leave if they put in a shower.”
Hayden lifted the keys to the lock and Hoyt snatched them from her hand. “Me first.”
Another key, another door, but this time Hoyt had his pistol ready.
Hayden grabbed the back of the shirt. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”
“I won’t as long as he doesn’t try to hurt me first.”
Hoyt shoved the heavy door open, cringing as it grated across the floor, and stalked into a large rectangular room. The back was filled with stacks upon stacks of steel cages, and there were horizontal wood boxes down the left wall. The tables were littered with paper. “He’s not here.”
“Let me see.” Hayden ducked around him into the room, flooding him with her scent, and Hoyt couldn’t help but zero in on her back. How her waist dipped in before rounding out into hips made for his hands.
Hoyt found himself trailing her into the lab as she walked between the tables, caressing a stray piece of paper here and there. There was no apparent organization to the place. “Did someone destroy your lab?”
“This is how the professor kept it. Controlled chaos.”
“And you can navigate this mess?”
“With a blindfold on.”
22
The cold sterile lab air punched through Hayden. Everything about the room looked the same. Three rows of rectangular black tables with scarred wood legs were spaced out in three perfect columns. Mice cages stacked half way up the back wall. Definitely not the amount needed by a big pharmacy, but perfect for their little college.
The bad lighting and lack of windows could make someone feel like they were in an interrogation room or some kind of scary movie. Not Hayden, though. This used to be her sanctuary, but the only thing she felt now was empty.
Haphazard stacks of papers lay scattered across the surfaces of the tables, and to the untrained eye it would look like the obsessive compulsive’s nightmare. But each table had a purpose. The organization meant something.
This was the professor’s life’s work. Everything he’d sought to achieve was built into these stacks of paper. Only now it wouldn’t be Latham’s name signed at the bottom of the National Psychology Association’s semi-annual journal. No, his name would be carved into a stone that would be positioned right beside his dead wife’s.
Hayden meandered through the tables, letting her fingers scan the tops, trying to absorb any remnants of Professor Latham’s energy. Anyone who knew him closely—her, his graduate students, his research partners—knew he slept here more than at his own house.
They all knew just how important the lab was to him, how much he wanted to make a difference.
And Hayden knew this place would never feel the same way.
A mouse squeaked and Hayden went to the back of the room. The center cage was eye level, and Jarvis, her favorite mouse, stood up on his back feet in greeting. His belly was a little round from all the snacks she fed him.
“I bet you’re hungry.” She pulled the bag of food from a nearby shelf and filled his feeder.
Jarvis climbed up the side of his cage and stuck his little whiskered nose through one of the small squares between the bars. Hayden stroked his fur. “I miss him too. But I’m not going to let them say he’s the bad guy. You know he’s not either, right?”
Jarvis squeaked and dropped back down, running in a fast small circle before climbing back up the side. It was Jarvis’s classic move when he wanted a snack, but Hayden chose to believe it was simply his way of agreeing with her. “There’s no way he could’ve done anything like that.”
“We need to go; the team should be here by now.”
Hayden turned and threaded her fingers into the cages at her back. Hoyt was only a few feet behind her. Even twenty pounds lighter than he’d been six months ago, he still took over the small room. He stalked toward her, everything about the way he moved predatory.
Hayden swallowed. “Hoyt, I need to feed the mice and get the professor’s paperwork organized.”
She wanted to go through everything without someone looking over her shoulder. Latham’s research laptop sat two rows over and she knew the password.
Hoyt didn’t stop until she was trapped between him and the cages. He lifted a hand, his movement hesitant, and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You can do that later.”
She looked into his eyes and her mouth went dry when she saw the possessive glint in his gaze. His fingers trailed from her ear down her jawline. Her heart flipped over in a somersault before plopping back down in place. She swallowed, trying to keep herself collected. “I need to feed the animals now.”
His fingers traveled down her neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Her reaction to him felt as natural as the sun rising. And almost as hot. “You stay with me,” he growled.
“So I’m to be your prisoner?”
Hoyt flinched and his hand fell from her throat, the sensual haze of the moment sliced in half by her careless words. “You know I’d never do that.”
Regret clutching at her, she reached for Hoyt. She expelled a sigh of relief when he didn’t jerk away from her touch. “I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
Hayden slid her palm over the chiseled contours of his arm. The rough texture of his skin abraded her palm, sending bone-melting sensation after sensation shooting up her skin. “What I meant was that I don’t like being told what to do.”
And that was a fact she had absolutely no shame in admitting.
His lips twisted into a crooked smile, and she could literally feel the tension ease from his body. “Very true. Maybe I should have approached it a different way, but I’m a little out of practice talking to women.”
Ravaged River: Men of Mercy, Book 6: A Military Romance Series Page 14